Welcome to the Playmaker Archive where every week will be diving into our massive database of over one million players, four million games, and much more to discover some of football’s more interesting and unique stories.

For our sixth edition we’re going to have a look at one of European club football’s most famous results, the 12-0 absolute hammering that Borussia Mönchengladbach gave to the other Borussia team, Dortmund way back in 1978.

It was a valiant effort by Gladbach to overturn a hefty goal difference on the final day of the season and we bring you the story of that famous game...

Gladbach 12-0 Dortmund

It’s a famous result and remains the biggest result in Bundesliga history back when on April 29th 1978 Borussia Mönchengladbach put 12 goals past Borussia Dortmund. It was also the final day of the 1977/78 Bundesliga season – an early finish due to it being a World Cup year.

Yet despite scoring 12 (you can find the full breakdown of the match here), Gladbach still finished second in the league behind local rivals Köln. But how did it all get to this?

The 70s were the peak for Borussia Mönchengladbach: they won the league in 69/70, 70/71, 74/75, 75/76, and 76/77 as well as lifting the DfB Pokal in 71/72 and the UEFA Cup twice (74/75 and 78/79).

But with two games to go at the end of the season, Gladbach and fellow North Rhine-Westphalia side Köln were neck-and-neck at the top of the Bundesliga table. At that stage, Köln had a mighty 13-goal lead. Then, Udo Lattek’s team went to Anfield where they were defeated 3-0 in the semi-final second leg of the European Cup (that Liverpool would go on to win).

That result in Europe only seemed to make Gladbach more determined, the following weekend they hammered Hamburger SV (including Kevin Keegan) 6-2 away from home while Köln just pipped Stuttgart 2-1 which reduced the goal difference between the two sides to 10 – usually an unlikely difference to overcome on the final day of the season.

So, assuming Köln would win their final game against the worst team in the league, St. Pauli, all Gladbach needed to do was win by at least 11 goals against Borussia Dortmund and to hope for the best to be champions.

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Dortmund looked demoralised pretty early on in the game and they weren’t helped by the fact that they had to play their second-choice goalkeeper Peter Endrulat. 

BVB boss Otto Rehhagel gave Endrulat the chance to be replaced at half-time with the score at 6-0 but to the goalkeeper’s credit he decided to stay on (and eventually regret his decision after conceding another six goals). Next season Endrulat would leave Dortmund and join Tennis Berlin with his final game for Dortmund almost ending in a tennis score.

There wasn’t much Rehhagel really could do even with the score at 8-0 unused substitute Siggi Held offered to come on, saying “Coach, do you want me to turn things around now?”

Obviously, when a result like 12-0 happens people will think that there’s a whiff of match-fixing about the whole affair. Was the goalkeeper in on it? The defenders? Have a look for yourself...

There’s actually never been any evidence that this was anything more than the worst of all bad days for a team like Dortmund. The German FA did investigate the result but no evidence was found of any fixing. 

As unfortunate BVB defender Amand Theis said of the game, "From the outside, it did indeed look as if there had been some irregularities, but there was definitely no cheating.

“In the end, every shot was a hit and at some point, we all gave up. That shame stayed with us for years to come."

Theis’ grandson Luca Kilian is also a defender, he came through the academy at Dortmund and now plies his trade with Köln. He has yet to concede 12 goals in a game.

But eventually, the 12-0 result meant little (besides being a burden for the BVB players involved). Köln won 5-0 against St. Pauli to seal the Bundesliga title completing a famous double after having already won the DfB Pokal earlier in the month after defeating Fortuna Düsseldorf in the final.

The final goal difference eventually finished at just +3 in favour of Köln – if only Gladbach had won 16-0!

More from the archives...

1: Albert Camus
2: Rungrado 1st of May Stadium
3: Sean Connery
4: San Marino's solitary victory
5: The Murder of Tommy Ball