have joined“ FC Bayern. The collection of signatures, on which 17 names appear, became the founding document. It was the beginning of FC Bayern‘ s history – but also includes a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Around 124 years after that legendary night, historians Alexa Gattinger and Michael Hellstern from the FC Bayern Museum are sitting at a conference table in the Allianz Arena alongside Dr Michael Stephan, who spent many years as head of the Munich City Archive. In front of them is a copy of FC Bayern‘ s founding charter – and a piece of research designed to unlock its final secrets. Historians have already discovered a lot about the origins of the document and its background. But the identities of the 17 men whose names appear on the foundation charter have not yet been fully clarified.“ We now know quite a lot about some of them,“ says Gattinger,“ and at least the basics about others: date of birth, heritage, future profession. But we still don‘ t know anything about three names on the list. And in the case of one signature, we‘ re not even entirely sure whether we‘ ve deciphered it correctly.“
Research for the club‘ s anniversary
Since the opening of the FC Bayern Museum in 2012, the historians have not only been working on further developing the permanent exhibition, but also regularly stage special exhibitions. In 2019, under the title“ Between the studio and the pitch“, some of the founding fathers who belonged to the Munich artists milieu were portrayed in more detail: the illustrator and graphic artist Otto Ludwig Naegele; the painter, sculptor and later aircraft pioneer Wilhelm Focke and the sculptor Benno Elkan. To mark the club‘ s 125th anniversary, the FC Bayern Museum is planning a book about the“ Fathers of success“, the 17 founding members. We now want to find out who the three previously unknown men were. Their names according to the charter: Wilhelm Hirsch, August Evers and Erich Gottschalk – or is his first name Ludwig? And is the surname completely different? While the first two signatures are easy to read, the signature of the presumed“ Erich Gottschalk“ is not. And so the search begins with an enquiry to the Leipzig historian and expert on old manuscripts Pierre Meinig. He also initially thinks he recognises the name Erich Gottschalk. But then slight doubts creep in. The surname could also be Gottschall or Gottschalck, says Meinig. The only thing he is fairly certain of is that the beginning was“ Gott …“ and the name was abbreviated. And the first name? It could also be“ Lud.“, Meinig thinks, the abbreviation for Ludwig. The absence of the dot on the i and the tiny full stop at the end of the name – provided it‘ s not a smudge – would support this. Could we send him a better scan of the document? A facsimile of the original foundation charter is on display in a
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showcase in the entrance area of the FC Bayern Museum. It’ s carefully removed and rescanned in the best possible resolution. This allows Meinig to examine the signature even more closely. Will he come to any new conclusions? While waiting for news from Leipzig, the search in Munich continues. Do the names we’ re looking for – in all the variants mentioned by Meinig – turn up in archives? In old civil registers, telephone directories, student directories? Or in early membership lists of the MTV, which still exists today? After all, many of the founding fathers of FC Bayern initially played for the club‘ s football team, which had existed since 1897 and was considered the best in Munich towards the end of the 19th century. Football was still a novelty in the city at the time. The game came to Germany from England in the mid-1870s. In Munich, football was first played on the Theresienwiese. From 1895, the first footballers chased after a leather ball in front of astonished passers-by who would shake their heads. The first football clubs were founded a year later, largely by students, merchants and civil servants, i. e. men from the middle-classes. They used a municipal sports field in the southern part of the Theresienwiese, so-called forest playgrounds outside the city, or the Schyrenwiese in the Isar floodplains as pitches. In the autumn of 1899, on the occasion of the“ Allgemeine Deutsche Sportausstellung“ or General German Sports Exhibition in Munich, a football match took place there between a team of southern German players and MTV. It was intended to promote football and attracted a large number of spectators. Among them was Franz John. He had only recently moved to Munich, had already played football in Berlin and was looking to join the small Munich footballing community. Whilst watching a game at the Schyrenwiese, he met“ various gentlemen from the MTV“, as he later
A closer look: A handwriting expert endeavours to decipher the more than 120-year-old document.
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