Football (Fußball) is by some distance the most popular sport among players and spectators in Berlin. Hertha BSC is so beloved that the entire city occasionally shuts down and packs into sports bars (not to mention the Olympiastadion) to follow important games. Most gyms and sports centres have indoor or outdoor places for informal kickabouts and matches. Part of the sport’s appeal is that it requires relatively little equipment; as long as you can get a team or two together, all you need are the correct shoes, a ball, good weather, and a clear plot of land in your local park. For amateurs, the sport is mostly organised geographically. The Berlin Football Association (Berliner Fußball-Verband, www.berliner-fussball.de) is the official body affiliated with the German Fußball Verband (DFB), and has about 100,000 individual members playing for about 360 football clubs. Its website is a good place to start the search for your local side. Youths mostly practise the sport in school teams. Football is growing in popularity among women and the older generation. The umbrella organisation for women’s teams, founded in 2004, is Frauenfussball-Club Berlin
(www.ffc-berlin.de).