[Bagor]

I see what you did there.

Fantastic BBC article on Dortmund. How can you not respect them? A city of 580k?

Football is all encompassing here, it reaches ever facet of life. One fan even leaves the club shop having just bought a Borussia Dortmund-branded lawn mower. The chance to experience this love affair is attracting more than 1,000 fans from England to every home match.
The scene in the Westfalenstadion after Dortmund's defeat by Hamburg

It is a scarcely believable figure, but walk around the stadium and British accents are audible among the 80,000 at Signal Iduna Park. "We jump on the Channel Tunnel train," says Matthew Gerrard, from Kent.
"We make a weekend of it. With tickets, accommodation, transport, this trip will cost £65. When you think it cost me £51 to see the Arsenal game last season, you can see the benefits."
Another group soaking up the beer and bratwurst outside the stadium are wearing Stoke shirts, while there are also fans from Aston Villa, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Port Vale. When you discover that the majority of Dortmund's 55,000 season-ticket holders have paid an average of £9 to see this match, this influx begins to make perfect sense.
Jack, a Chelsea fan, is here with two of his friends from London.
"Prices are too high in England," he says. "But here, everything is cheap. It's a better experience for the fan and the atmosphere is incredible."
Dortmund are increasingly aware of the English invasion. The club has even begun to conduct stadium tours in English. "It's amazing," says marketing director Carsten Cramer. "It's always nice when English fans tell me that including the cost of a flight, two beers and a ticket, they do not pay more than a match in England.
"Why are tickets cheap? Football is part of people's lives and we want to open the doors for all of society. We need the people, they spend their hearts, their emotions with us. They are the club's most important asset."
It is a phrase that many clubs use, but two stories demonstrate why it is, perhaps, far more than words here in Dortmund. In recent months, the club's caterers asked them to increase beer prices for the first time in three years. But Dortmund said no.
"What is the economic sense for the club to increase the price by 10 cents?" Cramer added. "For the overall economic success of the club it is not important to increase the price of a litre of a beer. It is still money, but not a lot to the club. But it does affect our fans, if they are spending their money match after match."


Puma, the club's shirt manufacturer, also urged them to increase the price of the kit after three seasons at the same figure. Dortmund, once again, said no.
"We try to be as fair as possible. It is easier to ask sponsors for cash than the fans," Cramer says.
Dortmund plan to introduce free wifi to all fans inside the stadium from January. Other clubs are doing the same, but not quite in the way that Dortmund are.
While the club want to encourage fans to engage with them online, order food and send tweets, once the match starts, they want their fans to put their phones down, use their hands to clap, their eyes to watch and the voices to sing.
And to ensure that remains the case, the club are discussing plans to dip the wifi signal once the match begins. Supporting the team is the be all and end all.

It is why Dortmund do not sell drinks in their corporate boxes during the game. It is why the stadium announcer demands fans return to their seats in time for the start of the second half. The club could allow fans to spend more money buying food and drink. But not at Dortmund.
"We are a football club," Cramer adds. "If the football doesn't run properly, the rest of the business would not work. The business is part of a train, but not the engine."

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/29624410