Fortuna Düsseldorf and the Rheinstadion: all out of love? When the old Bundesliga home was demolished in two controlled blasts in November 2002, a little melancholy crept in at the last second. Former stadium announcer Dieter Bierbaum watched from a safe distance in a hard hat with a Fortuna logo as the World Cup arena of 1974 collapsed into rubble within seconds. “It is an incredible feeling to see this,” he said in a trembling voice. “This stadium made sporting history – 22 years of Bundesliga football with Fortuna Düsseldorf, all gone in one moment.” Only the Nordkurve, under which pipes still ran that were needed for the new arena, remained standing for the time being.
The last ball in the Rheinstadion was kicked on 3 March 2002. In a 1–1 draw against arch-rivals Rot-Weiß Essen, Nigerian striker Ganiyu Shittu scored the final goal in the stadium’s history. Remarkably, the Rheinstadion hosted two European finals, in 1979 and 1981. Borussia Mönchengladbach won the UEFA Cup there, and Dynamo Tbilisi beat FC Carl Zeiss Jena and cult coach Hans Meyer in the Cup Winners’ Cup final in 1981. The crowd of 4,750 in that enormous concrete bowl for the Jena match remains the record low attendance for a European final.