AKTE HERTHA BSC is for lovers and haters of the Herthaner. From the very beginning, a special case. A problematic football city, an island in the middle of the Cold War.
The club that was run with Berlin cheek but rarely with good judgment became the first Bundesliga side to be relegated for non-sporting reasons. Before that, operating under the motto "everyone else does it too," they'd been handing out money to players that should never have been handed out.
It fits the turbulent biography of the "Old Lady" that the club couldn't capitalise on the euphoria following the reunification of Berlin. And when money did arrive years later, it was thrown out with both hands.
A passionate one-night stand with Europe's elite — but nothing more.
Hertha BSC — a club that has no shortage of urban legends, yet suffers from alpha-dog syndrome, and can't even win a title without a scandal. But it's precisely this roguish nature and the tension of the eternally pulsating capital that make the blue-and-whites so fascinating to their fans.