An FC Bayern München Fan Journey.

FC Bayern München. More than just a football club.

Three months short of his tenth birthday, Rick Joshua embarked on what would quickly become a lifelong footballing love affair. FC Bayern München would end up losing their European Champions’ Cup semi-final against English champions Liverpool on away goals, but a flame had been lit. That flame still burns brightly, and Red Odyssey: An FC Bayern Fan Journey is the story.

Red Odyssey is the first history of FC Bayern München in English that has been written from a supporter’s perspective. To find out more, keep on scrolling down. To ignore the fluff and get straight to business, just hit the “Buy the Book” button below. You can also get up to date with the author’s recent ramblings, on the related blog.

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Photo source: author

The Pain and the Glory.

Covering the best part of four decades, the author provides his own memories of his time as a British supporter of Germany’s most famous football club, from hazardous missions watching late-night highlights and the pain of European final defeat in the 1980s through to the nadir of the early 1990s and the historic treble in 2013. Through the eyes of an ordinary fan, Red Odyssey covers the development of the Bavarian club, and its gradual transformation into a genuine world footballing power.

Red Odyssey is essentially an FC Bayern fan journey written primarily for FC Bayern fans, but there is something for everybody interested in the German game. Even supporters of Hamburger SV, Werder Bremen, Borussia Dortmund and SpVgg Vestenbergsgreuth.

Photo source: GaHetNa (Nationaal Archief NL) / Wikimedia Commons

Gelsenkirchen. 2nd May 1984.

As the rain continued to hammer down with the Bayern players desperately waiting for the final whistle, a ragged looking Norbert Nachtweih stood out from the crowd, looking more like a Nachtweib in his untucked shirt that resembled a bright red minidress clinging tightly to his torso. One might have thought that such a disturbing sight would have scared away the men in white, but instead they just kept flooding forward, their relentless passion matched by the Gelsenkirchen crowd.