When home turns 100, Werder Bremen leave the green almost entirely out. Together with Danish kit supplier hummel, the Hanseatic club mark the Weserstadion’s centenary with an all-white anniversary shirt – one whose details only reveal themselves on a second look.
The Weserstadion turns 100 on 17 October 2026. To mark the occasion, Werder Bremen are trying something different: the club has done away with the very green at the heart of its identity.
Developed with hummel, it is the first shirt the club has made entirely in white. The hummel logo, the signature chevrons on the shoulders, the sponsor logo and the SVW embroidery on the collar all stay white on white.
Only the trims on the collar and cuffs add fine lines of Werder green. The crest travels back to the era of the stadium's opening, too: on the chest sits the Werder diamond of 1924 to 1929 – complete with today's championship star.
Embossed waves and the sound of the terraces
The details only really emerge on closer inspection – and inside the neck. A tonal geometric wave pattern is embossed into the white fabric, recalling the bend in the river where the stadium has stood for a century.
There, a historical illustration of the stadium is paired with the lines “Weserstadion 1926–2026” and “Wo die Weser einen großen Bogen macht” (“Where the Weser makes a great bend”). On the back, below the collar, “100 Jahre Weserstadion” stands out in green, while a side label bearing “1926” marks the year it opened.
“Every element, from the wave pattern in the fabric to the historical illustration in the neck area, was chosen very deliberately,” says hummel CEO Lars Stentebjerg.
Regulars at the Weserstadion will know the line inside the neck: “Wo die Weser einen großen Bogen macht” plays there at half-time. Its origins, though, lie elsewhere – in the Weserbogenlied, a regional folk song from East Westphalia-Lippe about the great bend in the Weser south of Porta Westfalica. The duo Klaus & Klaus later reworked it for Werder. The line still fits Bremen: at the Osterdeich, the Weser makes a great bend too – and that is exactly where the stadium stands.
From a wooden stand to the Bundesliga stage
The story of the site began long before 1926. As early as 1909, the Allgemeiner Bremer Turn- und Sportverein (ABTS) built a sports ground here with a wooden stand. The 1926 rebuild brought the first large stand, changing rooms and a restaurant – under what was then the name “ABTS-Kampfbahn”.
In 1929, the ground was renamed “Weser-Stadion”. From 1930, Werder played there regularly, before the stadium became the club's sole home ground in 1934. For Klaus Filbry, chairman of Werder's management board, the Weserstadion is “far more than our home ground. It is a place full of emotions, shared memories and great stories”.
An on-pitch debut with the legends, a single Bundesliga outing
The shirt makes its on-pitch debut on 26 September, when the Werder Legenden take on the Real Madrid Leyendas at the Weserstadion. The current Bundesliga squad, by contrast, will wear it just once – on 17 October, the stadium's 100th birthday, at home to SC Paderborn.
It is already on sale: the shirt is available from the Werder online store.
