On 26 May 1985, Bayer 05 Uerdingen achieved one of the most remarkable upsets in German football history by beating Bayern Munich 2-1 in the DFB-Pokal final at Berlin's Olympic Stadium. The victory, watched by 72,000 spectators at the first final staged in West Berlin, capped a remarkable rise for the modest club from Krefeld, which had only been promoted to the Bundesliga a couple of years earlier.
Bayern, the holders and overwhelming favourites, took an early lead through Dieter Hoeness in the eighth minute. But Uerdingen equalised within a minute when Horst Feilzer scored, and Wolfgang Schäfer struck the decisive goal in the 66th minute. The team was captained by Matthias Herget, with the Funkel brothers providing the creativity in midfield, while Bayern fielded a young Lothar Matthäus and Klaus Augenthaler, among others.
The win was all the more remarkable given Bayern's dominance of German football. By then, the Bavarians had won the DFB-Pokal seven times and claimed three consecutive European Cups in the mid-1970s. Uerdingen, backed by chemicals giant Bayer AG, were nevertheless an established Bundesliga side, having pushed Bayern to a replay in the previous year's competition. After the final, club chairman Arno Eschler expressed hope that the triumph would not prove a one-off.
Indeed, Uerdingen enjoyed further success, reaching the European Cup Winners' Cup semi-finals in 1986 and finishing third in the Bundesliga the following season. Their run in the Cup Winners' Cup included a memorable second-leg comeback against Dynamo Dresden known as the 'Miracle of the Grotenburg'. But financial backing eventually dried up, and the club's fortunes faded, leaving the 1985 final as a glorious, isolated moment in its history.
