Bayern Munich are record German champions, train at Säbener Straße, and have produced the likes of Thomas Müller, David Alaba and Franz Beckenbauer. Football followers around the world know all of that - but we've unearthed three fascinating anecdotes ahead of us welcoming Vincent Kompany's charges to the Red Bull Arena at 15:00 CET on 6 January.

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Bayern Munich began as a Carnival club

The footballers belonged to the Munich Men's Gymnastics Club (MTV for short) and wanted to join the Association of South German Football Clubs, but the MTV refused. Eleven members therefore agreed that very evening, on 27 February 1900, Shrove Tuesday, to form their own club. Since the founding of such sports clubs was not financially supported at the time - football, which originated in England, was simply considered too working-class a pastime - FC Bayern Munich initially operated as a carnival club.

A Goal of the Month - in his own net

What better than scoring a winning goal on your debut? Quite a lot, when the shot from 30 yards out goes into your own net, and to cap it all is awarded Goal of the Month. That's what happened to Helmut Winklhofer in August 1985 as a Bayern Munich novice against Bayer Uerdingen. The unlucky player wasn't even allowed to accept the award from the German television channel Das Erste - Bayern's bosses had forbidden it.

Giovanni Trapattoni and the bottle deposit return scheme

In March 1998, the iconic Italian coach, then managing the German record champions, held a press conference that would go down in history. In it, Thomas Strunz and his teammates were given a thorough dressing-down with comments like, "...we were as weak as a bottle of empty!" These grammatically quirky scenes were so memorable that Mister Trapattoni – who, of course, also successfully coached us in the late 2000s – advertised the returning of bottle deposits for a German discount retailer in 2020.

Tickets for our season opener against FC Bayern Munich are now on open sale.

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Did you know? Three great Bayern facts