The 09 countdown to the final - every day a new chapter of BVB’s DFB Cup history! Here’s the first one: “Hoppy Kurrat – We missed out on the double”.

August 14th, 1963, Niedersachsen Stadium in Hannover. Borussia Dortmund went into the cup final against HSV as clear favourites. After all, they had won the German title only six weeks earlier courtesy of a 3-1 victory over Cologne. But HSV had Uwe Seeler in their ranks on that day, and the striker scored all three goals in the 3-0 defeat. Hoppy Kurrat remembers.

What do you want me to tell? We took a 3-0 beating – it wasn’t nice. But honestly, it had nothing to do with any remaining alcohol from our league title party. We just missed too many players in that final. Some were ill or injured, knee and stuff like that. Others were gone. Charly Schütz, for example, left for Rome. And all this required too many changes in the team.

Willi Sturm played the last man – against Uwe Seeler. Well, Willi didn’t really look good against him. Charly Dörfel put in some nice crosses, and Uwe scored three goals from them. Willi was always behind him but couldn’t get his head to the ball. Just think about it: three crosses – three goals. I guess we had the wrong tactics, and they crushed us 3-0. Otherwise we would have been the first ones to win the double.

“Three crosses – three goals. I guess we had the wrong tactics”
But the league title, which we had won a short time before, was not devalued by this. It couldn’t be taken away from us. And because of it we were able to play in the European Cup the following season. Otherwise, this 5-0 win over Benfica at Rote Erde or the games in the semi-final against Inter Milan would never have happened. So, we were really happy with the 1962/63 season, but of course not with the final.

Boy, we were really bad that day. It was the final and of course we went out to win it, but Uwe Seeler was out of this world on that day. Of course, there wasn’t much going on after the game. We had supper and a few beers, went to sleep and returned home by bus the next day. That’s how it was.

This time, I think, it will be different. We have a chance. Bayern are beatable. We definitely don’t need to be afraid of them.