The O. Wüst story

Today “Bochum” does not only stand for the Ruhr university, the coalmining museum, the Bermuda triangle and Opel but also for VfL Bochum, thanks to Otto Wüst, former president of Germania 06 Bochum and later of VfL Bochum (until 1957) and his son Ottokar Wüst (president of VfL from 1962 until 1994). To explain this in more detail we have to go back in time again:

The inaugural meeting of Germania 06 Bochum takes place at master butcher Ernst Flühmann. In 1910 a new ambitious chairman is elected who originally comes from Aschaffenburg. It is textile merchant Otto Wüst who openes the way for the wild working-class club into the WSV (West-German Sports Association) so they can take part in the league.

Under the pressure of the Nazis a concentration of the football forces takes place in 1938. TuS Bochum 1848, TuS Bochum 04, Germania Bochum 06 and Sport Bochum 1911 are merged into “VfL Bochum 1848” on Maundy Thursday. TuS Bochum 1848 provides the colours and the stadium for the new club. Otto Wüst, chairman of Germania 06, becomes the head of the football section (Fachamt Fußball).

The “Bochumer Hof” public house at Alleestraße/Humboldtstraße is the new local of VfL.
Otto Wüst leads the young club into the “Gauliga”, the highest league system in Germany. After World War Two Otto Wüst remains chairman of VfL until 1957 and sees his son Ottocar become chairman in 1962. Otto Wüst dies in 1969.

Ottokar Wüst, born on 22 December 1925, has experienced the bombings of 1943/44 in the Ruhr area, his father‘s shop at Brückstraße 27-29 is destroyed in Bochum for seven years.

Ottokar Wüst is supported by the city of Bochum which starts to convert the old stadium at Castroper Straße into a modern football arena in the seventies. In close vicinity to the stadium
you can see the “Starlight Express”, the most successful musical in Germany.

Although Bochum is always a candidate for relegation (according to the socalled experts) Ottokar Wüst keeps Bochum in the Bundesliga until the end of his chairmanship. Not only since the promotion to the Bundesliga the supporters identify with him and the club. When singer-songwriter Herbert Grönemeyer later writes the song “Bochum” with the line “you and your VfL” it is somehow open whether “you” means the city of Bochum or Ottokar Wüst.

Wolfgang Viehweger, “Grandstand Ruhr”, Verlag Klartext, S. 173 f.