Friday marks the fiftieth anniversary of FC Bayern’s promotion to the Bundesliga. After a failed attempt in the summer of 1964, Munich achieved the long-awaited promotion with an 8-0 victory in the final play-off match against Tennis Borussia Berlin. The Bundesliga had been founded two years before that. Original members Hamburg SV, in the top division since 1963, are the only club to be in the Bundesliga longer than FCB.
FC Bayern have developed into the biggest sports club in the world over the past five decades. Record Bundesliga champions and DFB Cup winners, Champions League winners and World Club champions - FCB have won every possible title at club level. To mark this fiftieth anniversary fcbayern.de brings you facts and figures to highlight the club’s achievements in that period.
Record champions FC Bayern
24 of the 52 Bundesliga titles have been won by FC Bayern - no other club has won more than five German league titles since 1963. The first German championship title came in 1932 - FCB are clearly top of the list with 25 championships to date.
FC Bayern have held top spot in the Bundesliga 683 times - that is 39 per cent of all matchdays, far ahead of any other club. Borussia Dortmund are second with 137 matchdays at the top of the table.
FC Bayern have clocked up 990 wins in the Bundesliga with 629 at home and 361 on the road. FCB are clearly ahead of Werder Bremen in second with a total of 738 wins.
FC Bayern have played 1,704 games in the Bundesliga since promotion in the summer of 1965. That puts the record champions third in the all-time records behind Werder Bremen (1,730) and Bundesliga founder members HSV (1,764).
The fans of FC Bayern have seen 3,684goals since promotion to the Bundesliga - 2,271 at home and 1,413 away. Again, no other club can compete with that record with Werder Bremen second on 2,926 goals.
Goals, points, wins
In the five top European leagues no team has ever won their domestic title as quickly as FC Bayern. FCB secured the Bundesliga title with 7 games to play in 2013/14. To date, that is the only time the league has been won in March.
Conceding just 18 goals in 2012/13 campaign marks another record for FC Bayern. That was repeated in 2014/15 and also included 22 clean sheets - another unique record.
Between October 2013 and March 2014 FC Bayern won 19 Bundesliga games in succession, the longest run of wins in the history of the German league. FCB were unbeaten for 53 games between November 2012 and March 2014 - also unmatched by any club in Germany’s top flight.
FCB ended the 2012/13 campaign with 91 out of a possible 102 points. That is the highest number of points ever achieved in the league. Bayern recorded 29 wins along the way - a record that the Reds equalled the following year.
In 1971/72 FC Bayern netted 101 goals - another league record to date.
At the end of the 2014/15 season: 287consecutive Bayern matches in the Bundesliga were sold out both at home and away - another first in the history of the league. The last time there were empty seats was back in January 2007 when FCB drew 0-0 with VfL Bochum on a freezing Tuesday night in front of ‘only’ 64,000 fans.
Record-holding Bayern players
Three players have won 8 league titles with FC Bayern: Oliver Kahn, Mehmet Scholl and Bastian Schweinsteiger. Nobody else has achieved that level of success. They are followed by three players with seven titles each and another four players with six - all of them from FC Bayern.
The top scorer in the Bundesliga has been an FCB player 15 times - no other club can match that. Gerd Müller claimed the accolade seven times with no other Bundesliga player winning more than three times. Gerd leads Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (3), Roland Wohlfahrt (2) plus Giovane Elber, Luca Toni and Mario Gomez (1 each).
FC Bayern have produced the Footballer of the Year 20 times - that too is unparalleled in the Bundesliga. Franz Beckenbauer heads this list with four titles ahead of Sepp Maier with three. Gerd Müller, Oliver Kahn and Michael Ballack won it twice. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Paul Breitner, Lothar Matthäus, Franck Ribéry, Arjen Robben, Bastian Schweinsteger and Manuel Neuer have won once.
Gerd Müller scored 40 goals in 1971/72. That is still the best return for a player over the course of a Bundesliga season.
The Bomber found the back of the net 365times in 427 appearances. No other player has scored anywhere near that number of goals in the history of the Bundesliga.
Sepp Maier played 442 Bundesliga games in succession for FC Bayern between 1966 and 1979. That is still a record in the German league. The Cat from Anzing also holds the record number of Bundesliga appearances for Bayern Munich with 473 games in goal for the Reds.
