Early years

The club was founded on 19 December 1909 by a group of young men unhappy with church-sponsored Trinity Youth, where they played football under the stern and unsympathetic eye of the local parish priest. Father Dewald was blocked at the door when he tried to break up the organizing meeting being held in a room of the local pub, Zum Wildschütz. The name Borussia is Latin for Prussia and was taken from the nearby Borussia brewery. The team began playing in blue and white striped shirts with a red sash, and black shorts. In 1913, they donned the black and yellow stripes so familiar today.

Over the next decades the club enjoyed only modest success playing in local leagues. They had a brush with bankruptcy in 1929 when an attempt to boost the club's fortunes by signing some paid professional footballers failed miserably and left the team deep in debt. They survived only through the generosity of a local supporter who covered the team's shortfall out of his own pocket.