Rolf Blau turns 70!

VfL Bochum 1848 congratulate Rolf Blau on his decadal anniversary as the former midfielder turns 70 years old on 21^st May. Blau made 224 Bundesliga as well as 133 2. Bundesliga appearances. Blau and Blau-Weiß (blue and white) – the perfect match. Rolf Blau played in 123 fixtures for VfL, all of them in the Bundesliga.

Rolf Blau’s footballing career kicked off in Rhineland-Palatinate, at FV Engers 07, a club that meanwhile has become well-known in Bochum. Over Spvgg Andernach he moved on to VfL Neuwied, where he played in 1971. It was a great leap forward to Bundesliga football, but Rolf Blau was able to cope with it. First station: Hannover 96. Until 1973 he made 34 appearances and scored 3 goals for the side from Lower Saxony. In May 1972, being only 19 years old, he was successful to score his first ever Bundesliga goal, it was the 2-2 equaliser in the 3-2 victory over MSV Duisburg.

Blau had his longest period – before his time in Bochum – at Preußen Münster. In the four years between 1973 and 1977 he and the “Eagles” managed to gain promotion to the newly established 2^nd Bundesliga, was chosen “sportsman of the year” in 1975 and made 123 appearances in total – just as many as he would make for Bochum.

In the 1977/78 season he again had ambitions to play Bundesliga football and joined promoted side FC St Pauli. The mission failed and the club from Hamburg was just relegated only one year later. That was not true for Blau and his teammate Walter Oswald, who both were transferred to VfL. The man with the prominent moustache played for Bochum for four years. His record: 123 appearances, 14 goals, and a nomination for Germany’s Under 21 squad at the age of 28. VfL and Blau once managed to finish 8^th in the table – the best position until then in Bochum’s Bundesliga history. He left the club in 1982, but not without a sweet 3-1 win against Bayern Munich.

In his private life Rolf Blau was already deeply ingrained in Bochum at that time. At the beginning of November 1978 he opened a night club in the previous cooler of the Müser Brewery in Bochum-Langendreer. Today the eleven-storey building still characterises the borough’s cityscape, but in the meantime the venue bears a different name. Until 1998 Rolf Blau was the boss of the former club called “Rockpalast”. After that he passed the baton to a former employee. As from the year 2000 the location is called “Matrix”.

The ultimate station of his footballing career was Hertha BSC. The club from Germany’s capital had just returned to the Bundesliga in 1982, but was immediately relegated again. The mission of another direct promotion failed so that Rolf Blau finished his career in 1984 in Berlin – after 347 fixtures as a professional footballer, 61 goals plus 6 games for the German Under 21 squad under head coach Verti Vogts and in a team with later world champions Rudi Völler, Lothar Matthäus, Andi Brehme or Pierre Littbarski.