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Changeable weather conditions accompanied by still comfortable autumnal temperatures provided the backdrop to a day across which 25,000 visitors attended the KidsClub zoo event, presented by REWE. Dortmund Zoo on Mergelteichstraße was, as such, packed to the rafters.

Two Dortmund players, alongside the animal stars, stood at the centre of the children's attention: Andre Schürrle and Mario Götze, who took plenty of time for their fans. Schürrle spent an hour signing autographs in front of the gaur enclosure (a type of wild ox from South East Asia), and posed for many photographs with fans. Schürrle also continued a fine BVB player tradition, in that he took over the sponsorship of a roan antelope.

In front of the Amazon compound, a large snakelike queue grew to several hundred metres in length as far as the otter enclosure, since Mario Götze was waiting there. The BVB man wrote his fingers raw signing fan articles and was probably immortalised in more than a thousand mobile phone photographs. The world champion, furthermore, demonstrated that he is not only capable of exercising great control over a football, but also over animals: The penguins literally ate from Mario Götze's hand. (br)