Football Journey

No wonder the only real football was played for the East German Cup – to a point the Cup tournament could be seen as a resistance to Stassi rule. National cups were rapidly losing interest in the 1980s – everywhere they were seen as a secondary tournaments, not all that important. Even in England. But in DDR it looked the opposite: that was the real tournament, where the grip of the Police can be broken – and it was broken. Dynamo (Berlin) was winning the championship, but not the Cup… Magdeburg and Karl-Marx-Stadt reached the Cup final this year. It was particularly brave effort of lowly Karl-Marx-Stadt. Up to the final, though – the most important match simply showed the vast difference of class. Magdeburg may not have been in great shape, but still was much stronger than Karl-Marx-Stadt, winning 4-0.

Admirable run and brave effort, but the underdog was too weak. Witch team like that, Karl-Mrax-Stadt had no chance at all. Third row from left: Richter, A. Müller, Heß, Bähringer, Pelz, Achenbach, Uhlig, Heydel.

Middle row: Fuchs, Lienemann, Ihle, Birner, Krahnke, Fuchs, Petzold, Schwemmer, Lindemann, P. Müller, Dr. W. Müller.

Front row: Eitemüller, Schneider, Neuhäuser, Persigehl, Schubert.

For 1. FC Magdeburg the season ended really well. True, they had no real opposition at the final, but that was not their fault. One may even say these boys were the true football champions of DDR and to a point it could be fair. To a point… for Magdeburg had problems and the team was not great, and there was little hope it will be better in the foreseeable future. But no matter, for victory is victory and that in front of 50 000 – perhaps fewer watched Dynamo (Berlin) during the whole season.

 

First Division. If there was any change, it was negative one. Looked like that at least two clubs just did not care anymore – they dropped down the table, but still were too strong to be in any danger. Even for a time, when massive squad changes were almost unheard of, East German football was an anomaly – quite safely one can say, that there were about 100 good players in the whole country and the rest were plain hopeless. Very few transfers occurred between seasons, some clubs – mighty Dynamo (Berlin) included – even did not bother to release players and recruit new talent: most likely there was not any. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of East German football was the effort to keep with fashion – since the country stubbornly resisted buying foreign gear on ideological grounds, local makers were troubled to make something similar to the designs of West German leaders Adidas and Puma – the kits were colourful, contemporary, but it was a poor-man imitation: two stripes instead of Adidas’ staple, big names of the clubs instead of adds in front of the shirts. Amusing, but nothing to do with the game as such.

Sachsenring (Zwickau) finished last with 9 points. May be their relegation was surprising from aside, but the club depended for years on 2 players – Jurgen Croy and Gert Schellenberg. Arguably the all-time best East German goalkeeper retired and the team, never strong anyway, simply plummeted to the bottom. Not that surprising, really.

Chemie (Bohlen), 13th with 13 points, was the second relegated team. Well, nothing surprising here – they were just promoted and like all newly promoted lasted only one season. Not their first spell with the same result either – they were relegated in 1978-79, then in 1980-81.

What an ambitious newly promoted team could achieve was 12th place – Union (Berlin) managed just that, finishing with 17 points. That was also familiar – a newcomer barely surviving its first season, only to be relegated in the next. But who cares for the next? The important point was that will be one more season among the best. And who knows? May be a miracle will happen. Alas, the squad did not suggest any miracles.

Chemie (Halle) – 11th thanks to better goal-difference. They looked promising mavericks in the mid-70s , but only managed to secure themselves in the first division. Relegation was not likely, but even unlikelier was getting stronger.

Wismut (Aue) – 10th with 20 points. Just registering presence… as ever.

1. FC Karl-Marx-Stadt – the perfect mid-table team: 26 points from 26 games, 41-41 goal-difference. Sedated, secure, disinterested, stable, the same… chose a word.

Hansa (Rostock) – 8th with 28 points. On the surface, well done – they meandered between 1st and 2nd divisions for years, finally stabilizing themselves. Nothing special, though – just establishing themselves in the league.

Dynamo (Dresden) – 7th with 29 points. Very weak season, even a surprise, but probably they just did not bother, knowing well in advance who will win anyway.

The same could be said of 1. FC Magdeburg – 6th with 29 points and ahead of Dresden only on better goal-difference. There was a slight difference, though – Dresden somehow maintained strong squad, but Magdeburg badly needed rebuilding – the core still consisted of the Cup Winners Cup winners, their number shrinking every year, for they were getting older and retiring. And nobody around to replace them.

Rot-Weiss (Erfurt) finished 5th, which looked like a big surprise, but probably fooled no one. Most likely they just took advantage of the relative weakness of Magdeburg and Dynamo (Dresden). They had perhaps the most promising young talent at the moment – Andreas Thon. A blessing and a curse: he helped them soar up; he was not going to stay with the club for long. Even with him the squad was pedestrian.

Lokomotive (Leipzig) was not a surprise – they finished as they usually did: 4th. Not much of a scorers, but with solid defense – second-best this season. However, they 4th with bit of luck, for they not only finished with same points Rot-Weiss had, but both teams had matching goal-difference as well: 45-27. Head-to-head record favored Lokomotive.

Carl Zeiss (Jena) finished with bronze, but like Dresden and Magdeburg perhaps they did not put much of an effort – 34 points in total. Far behind the champions. Top row from left: Lothar Kurbjuweit – Rüdiger Schnuphase – Hans-Ulrich Grapenthin – Karsten Härtel – Thomas Runkewitz – Jürgen Raab – Andreas Krause.

Middle row: Hans-Joachim Meyer(Trainer) – Ulrich Oevermann – Andreas Bielau – Norbert Kahnt – Gerhard Hoppe – Stefan Meixner – Jörg Burow – Helmut Stein(Trainer).

Sitting: Martin Trocha – Matthias Kaiser – Fred Steinborn – Konrad Weise – Uwe Pohl – Wolfgang Schilling.

Hard to tell – the squad suggest bigger potential, strong enough to challenge Dynamo (Berlin). But that could be under normal circumstances and East German football was not normal at all.

Forwaerts (Frankfurt Oder) – silver medalists. It was only thanks to better goal-difference than Carl Zeiss’, but it looked like the former powerhouse was re-established itself at the top after the disastrous 1970s. It also looked like a typical Eastern European set-up: the Army vs the Police. But it was not going to be and that was the last strong season of the Army club – the revival did not happen.

There was no real Army-Police battle: Dynamo (Berlin) was too strong. And just to make sure no accident happens, the Stassi controlled everything – referees, administrators. The champion was known well before the championship started, every attempt to challenge Dynamo was hopeless and no wonder some clubs seemingly gave up. Dynamo did not lose even single match this year – they won 20 and tied 6. They allowed only 22 goals in their net, but scored 72. Vorwaerts and Carl Zeiss finished 12 points behind. There was no challenge at all. But was Dynamo all that strong? They were strong,with their 9 national team players, but Carl Zeiss had pretty much the same number of first-rate stars. But, by now, everybody was familiar with situation and resigned to it – one more title for Dynamo and there will be the same champion next year as well. And the year after that, and so on. It may be unfair to the players if the team to question their real abilities, but why not, since everything was preordained. No fools around: who could believe that the squad was made of humble boys, listed as students and industrial workers? Even this was too much – in other Communist countries players of Police teams were nominally employed as police officers. Here the fake was reaching absurd dimensions – but adding titles.

DDR – perhaps the most boring European championship, for everything was easily predictable year after year to the point there was hardly any need to play the season. But it was played, so let take a look. Second Division provided little hope. Clubs like

Chemie (Premnitz) and

Energie (Cottbus) hardly gave any reason for something strong emerging from the second level – and those were the better clubs.

As ever, the winners of the 5 groups making the Second Division went to the mini-championship deciding the 2 promoted teams. Which were to return back here after a year.

Even at the final tournament there was no parity – BSG Schiffahrt/Hafen (Rostock) won 1 match and lost 7, taking the lowest place with 2 points.

BSG Wismut (Gera) earned 7 points and got 4th place.

Stahl (Brandenburg) finished 3rd with 8 points. Standing from left: Peter Schoknecht, Wolfgang Rahn, Bernd Schmidtchen, Frank Görisch, Winfried Kräuter, Hubert Gebhardt, Michael Schulz, Christoph Ringk, Horst Kölsch.

First row :  Mathias Morack, Frank Jeske, Rainer Fliegel, Roland Gumtz, Siegfried Malyska, Thomas Arendt, Gerhard Kraschina, Eckart Märzke.

These three teams were no match to the other two group winners.

BSG Chemie (Leipzig) finished with 11 points at 2nd place. Perhaps the best known among the East German second level clubs, Chemie moved constantly between the leagues – too strong for second division, they easily got promoted. Too weak for top level – momentarily relegated. Once again easily going up… and expected to return just as quickly.

BSG Stahl (Riesa) not only had no problems, but finished with the best record – 4 wins, 4 ties, did not lose a game, 20-4 goal-difference. Impressive… but only at that level. Like Chemie (Leipzig), they were expected to be mercilessly beaten by the regulars of first division and drop back to second division.

The Cup final opposed AEK (Athens) to PAOK (Thesaloniki), a classic Atens vs Thesaloniki clash. A battle of ambitious clubs, wanting very much to come out of shadow of Olympiakos and Panathinaikos. Both teams were lead by foreign coaches- AEK by the former coach of the Austrian national team Helmut Senekowitsch, PAOK by the West German Heinz Hoher. He was representing the leading German school, but only that. PAOK had two seasoned foreigners – Mladen Fortula and Guerino Neto, who played seemingly forever in Greece, plus new West German midfielder, Holger Trimhold, but AEK had stronger squad and won 2-0.

Well done and one more trophy for AEK. May be the foreign players in the squad enjoyed the victory most – the Yugoslav midfielder Radonic and the Bulgarian attacking midfielder Angel Kolev were short of trophies. They played second fiddle in their original countries – now they were winners.

The Greek premier league was not much of a show this season – one team dominated and there was no real battle for survival at the bottom. AO Kastoria was last with 20 points and their fairytale period ended. AS Rodos was 17th with 21 points, a team expected to finish in the relegation zone. Panachaiki (Patras) – 16th with 26 points. The only question was about the 4th team going down – Panionios (Athens) and Macedonikos (Thesaloniki) were tied with 29 points. Panionios had better goal-difference and usually that would have been enough to top Makedonikos, but there was no such tie-breaker in Greece, so the teams proceeded to a relegation play-off. Justice prevailed, so to say – Panionios won 3-2 and Makedonikos went down.

Nothing much in the middle zone of the league.

Bearded PAS (Giannina) settled for comfortable 9th place – this club performed well ever since it was promoted in the 1970s and by now appeared to be solid mid-table team. Well, appearances could be misleading.

Iraklis (Thesaloniki) was 8th with 34 points – the highest placed of the lower-half, but still comfortable teams. Yet, Iraklis was a disappointment in a way – they had arguably the greatest player at this time, the Soviet born Hadzipanagis. They had 2 former Bulgarian national team players – Boko Dimitrov and Angel Rangelov – in the middle of defense. A strong pair of central-defenders, who were still not too old and had plenty of experience. Iraklis should have been going up… instead it stayed constantly in mid-table. As for the Bulgarians, they were becoming the prime import for Greeks clubs at this time and there were quite a few in the league. Just recently Rangelov confessed that his years with Iraklis were the best time in his career – may be that was why the club was not going up? Players, having it easy and not pushing too much, just enjoying life.

It was the other way around at the island of Crete – OFI (Iraklion) ended 7th this year with 37 points and were the 2nd highest scorers in the championship. They also had Bulgarian of a kind – the ethnic Greek Tomas Lafchis, their young goalkeeper, was not only born and raised in Bulgaria, but even played for the national team – which actually finished his international career. After going to Greece, he was never called to play for Bulgaria and could not play for Greece either. His was a mysterious case – recently it was revealed that he was an officer of the Bulgarian Secret Police, which implies that possible he was sent to Greece with some kind of mission. True, he played for Levski-Spartak (Sofia) before moving to Greece – the club belonged to the Police and at least nominally all players were made officers, so to receive big salaries and keep fake amateur status, but what possible secret mission a goalkeeper could perform in the deep Greek province? Laughable story, never elaborated, only insinuated, but on the field Lafchis played well enough to attract the interest of Panathinaikos and soon joined the big club. But OFI was going up, their strongest period just started and with or without Lafchis, they were going to be one of the best Greek clubs in the later 1980s.

As for the future Lafchis’ club, Panathinaikos suffered very weak season – they finished 6th with 37 points. Ahead of OFI only on goal-difference and far behind the top 5 teams. A disaster really. And one more failure of once famous Romanian coach Stefan Kovacs – he failed everywhere he worked after Ajax (Amsterdam). Something was wrong with the squad, hard to say what, but at least one thing was sure: players like Galakos and Kirastas reached their rather low peak. Kapsis was too old already. Double that for the Greek national team goalkeeper Konstantinou – both getting old and never too good. Foreigners were of the same mold – the Dutch Tscheu La Ling was more or less failed promise and the Norwegian striker Arne Dokken was hardly a star player. Panathinaikos had rather ordinary and uninspired squad and needed a big shake-up.

Aris (Thesaloniki) had a good season – 5th with 41 points. By no means a title contender, but among the best and keeping there. They still lost to their city rivals PAOK, though – PAOK finished 4th with 42 points. AEK (Athens) took the bronze with 45 points, losing silver on worse goal-difference. They lost to the greatest surprise this year – the usually lowly and not at all regular member of first division AE Larissa soared to 2nd place. They never finished that high before and nobody expected them to be there, but they were. Thanks to Poles – the coach Jacek Gmoch and the aging by now member of the great 1974 Polish squad Kazimierz Kmiecik. Looked like one time wonder, but it was not going to be so – Larissa had more in their sleeves. But surprise teams are just that – no matter how inspired, they very rarely are able to really challenge the status quo. And Larissa did not.

Olympiakos (Piraeus) won 20 games, tied 10, lost only 4 and had no competition at all this season. They finished 5 points ahead of Larissa. Not without trouble, though… Kazimierz Gorski was replaced during the season by arguably the best ever Greek coach Alketas Panagoulis. The squad, although superior in Greece, was not much – the imports were hardly known or becoming known: two midfielders, one Norwegian – Roger Albertsen, and one Uruguayan – Vince Estavillo. It was rather the general weakness of the opponents than true class, but nobody judges harshly champions. Yet, it was not a squad able to win a double.

Greece planned a massive change of the league system for the next season, requiring note here. Most likely the idea was based on the combination of financial stability and increase of the competitive level – presently, professional football included First and Second divisions, which meant 58 clubs in total. Too much for a small country – clubs from small towns made most of the 2 Second Division groups, which could not have neither enough cash, nor enough supporters to have reasonable hopes for getting cash at the gates. One result was lower quality of football, the other was corruption scandals. So, the First Division was going to be reduced to 16 teams and the Second Division reorganized into one league. First Division was no problem – 4 teams were relegated at the end of the season and 2 promoted. Second Division was another matter – the sheer numbers need more careful look. Eight teams of each group were to remain in the new league – that made 16. Plus 4 relegated from First Division – a total of 20 so far. Plus one promoted from Third Division. 21 teams… weird number. And the number of Second Division was still too large even for megalomaniac Greeks – certainly more changes were to be made in the future.

As for the promoted newcomer, it was simple enough: Edessaikos A.O. (Edessa) was the lucky one. A huge list of freshly relegated to third level clubs follow – most of them largely unknown outside Greece, for they never appeared in the top league. To list them would be largely waste of time, although some are present today in the First Division. Well, today some others do not exist… But a mystery of the uneven number was solved after the end of the season: the 9th placed teams in both second division groups met in a play-off, the winner remaining and the loser relegated. This, however, followed earlier play-off: Eolikos Mitilinis (Lesbos) and Panelefsiniakos (Elefsina) ended with equal points in the Southern Group and played between themselves to break the tie. Eolikos won 3-0 and moved to the play-off against Northern Group’s 9th, Niki (Volou). The contest was unresolved after overtime – 2-2 – and moved to the drama of penalty shoot-out. Only now Niki prevailed 3-2 and preserved a spot in the new Second Division – thus, the new league was made of 20 teams, not 21. Most members played formerly in the First Division – smaller, but at least able to go up occasionally, clubs.

Like A.O. Pierikos (Katerini) – 6th in the last season of the Northern Group.

Whatever elbowing was going in the lower parts of the second level groups, really important was the battle for top place and promotion. Not much in the Southern Group: two teams were stronger than the rest and they battled to the end. Diagoras (Rodos) lost.

Egaleo FC (Athens) clinched 1st place by a single point and was promoted.

More equal teams in the North, so 8 teams competed for the desired spot most of the season. Eventually, five of them lost steam and only 3 raced to the end. A.O. Kavala ended 3rd with 49 points. Agrotikos Asteras (Evosmos) – 2nd with 50 points.

Apollon Kalamarias (Thessaloniki) prevailed with 52 points and returned to play again in the First Division.

 

But the championship was not all for Rapid – they met Wacker (Innsbuck) at the Cup final and promptly destroyed it, winning both legs : 3-0 and 5-0. Not not even a trace of a challenge.

Wacker lost a second consecutive Cup final, which was rather depressing for them, but also represented the real situation: there were only two strong teams in the country and no other was even close. Unfortunately, Wacker was already in decline – the squad amply shows it: only aging Hattenberger was significant player and that mostly in the past. Compared to the leading team, Wacker had rather anonymous squad, even the foreigners were second rate: the 32-years old Yugoslav goalkeeper Fuad Djulic played for lowly Borac (Banja Luka) before joining Wacker. The 27-years old West German libero Wesly Schenk failed to impress Bayern (Munchen) and before coming to Innsbruck played lower level football for MTV Ingolstadt. The only consolation for Wacker was that they were going to play in the Cup Winners Cup as losing finalists.

Rapid celebrated a double. Standing from left: coach Baric, Herbert Feurer, Johann Krankl, Zinchenko, Kurt Garger, Bernd Krauss, Johann Pregesbauer, Perovic, Winkler (?), assistant coach Grausam, assistant coach Muller.

First row: Rudolf Weinhofer, Gerald Willfurth, Herbert Weber, Hofmann, Reinhard Kienast, Leo Lainer, Christian Keglevits, Sulak (?), Antonin Panenka.

One of the strikers – Petar Brucic – is missing, but only on the photo. Otto Baric did excellent job building and maintaining this vintage and no wonder Rapid was winning. The Soviet import Zinchenko was on his way out and played little by now, but Krankl and Panenka lead the team with inspiration and class. They were getting old, but their teammates were strong support: Feurer, Weber, Kienast, the naturalized West German Krauss, and exciting Keglevits all played for Austria. Petar Brucic completed explosive trio of strikers. Panenka created opportunities. Weber and Krauss – solid defense in front of Feurer, who may have been a back-up of Concilia in the national team, but he was considerably younger than his illustrious rival. Already Baric was able to improve the squad with careful additions and inevitable transfer of Keglevits was not something to fear. In a way, Rapid was in better situation than Austria (Vienna), which needed to start rebuilding – Rapid needed only fine managing of transfers

 

The Austrian top league can be summarized simply in one sentence: shoulder to shoulder battle between Rapid and Austria and nothing else. It was like 14 teams played different championship on their own and not even all of them – at the bottom 4 teams were not even up to that standard.

1. FC Simmering (Vienna) – or CEOX Simmering, or ISSC, whatever you decide – did not belong even to the outsiders: they finished 16th with 11 points, losing 21 of the 30 championship games they played.

First Vienna collected 19 points, which was good enough only for 15th place – and relegation.

Brace yourself… Union Wels, Raika Wels, Union Raiffeisen Wels, pick a name, managed to survive with 20 points – 14th. Well, one more season in the top league for sure.

SC Neusiedl – or SC Alvorada – also got one more season to play with the best: 13th with 21 points. It was already clear that they and Union Wels were to finish at the league bottom in the next season – and again at the bottom, if escaping relegation again.

With 25 points LASK (Linz) took the 12th place – down in the table even in such weak championship.

Wiener Sport-club (Vienna) was 11th with 27 points. Alfred Riedl, Peter Pacult, Wolfgang Kienast, and Bogdan Masztaler were the stars. Well, if you call them stars… and if you remember Masztaler playing for his native Poland at the 1978 World Cup. Unlike the Austrians, he had no longer chance to play for stronger club. Wiener Sport-club, once well known and strong, was a sad example of the Austrian football reality: even Vienna was unable to keep more than 2 descent clubs.

Admira/Wacker, 9 times champion of Austria in the past, now was only good to prevail over Wiener Sport-club on goal-difference and finish 10th. No wonder why… their most famous player was Ladislav Kuna. His name made sense only to those remembering the 1960s. As for the future… talented Josef Degeorgi most certainly was not going to be part of Admira/Wacker’s one.

Considering the state of Wiener Sport-club and Admira/Wacker, SC Eisenstadt – wait, shall we try SC Eduscho Eisenstadt – had a great season. After all, they were lucky just to be members of First Division… and finished 9th with 29 points. Mastering the tie was their secret – they managed the most in the league, 13. Laszlo Pusztai was no longer good enough to play for Hungary, but was still fine for a small Austrian club.

VOEST (Linz) – 8th with 32 points. By now, close to an outsider, if the 10-team league was in place. Bigger league gave them mid-table comfort.

GAK-Ringschuh, better known as Grazer AK (Graz). A tiny bit better goal-difference placed above VOEST and 7th. A bit of novelty… once upon a time mighty defender of mighty Ajax (Amsterdam) Barry Hulshoff played for or at least was registered with GAK this season. He just arrived from Dutch second division club MVV Maastricht. By a sharp contrast, the other foreign player was entirely unheard of: the Yugoslav goalkeeper Savo Ekmecic, already 34 years old, was keeping the gate since 1977. As for Hulshoff, he was 36 years old now and the coach, a regular of Bayern (Munchen) during its rise in the 1960s, August Starek was one year older – as things were, Starek would have been still playing if so wished…

SK Hypobank Austria, or Austria, or simply Klagenfurt (to avoid duplication and confusion with their Vienna-based namesake) spent some years in second division obscurity, so 6th place was great in a way. Nothing much, but some ambition could be detected in the make up of the squad: relatively good keeper, considered once a national team material – Fritz Benko, seemingly the only African player in the league – Kassim Ramadhani, and a suspicious group of Yugoslavs: 4 of them. Their large number questions the rule for foreign players allowed – it could have been 3 instead of the typical for the time 2 foreigners. Still, there would be too many foreigners, so some Yugoslavs could be naturalized Austrians by now. Ivica Senzen was too old and although never a star, ar least well known player back at home to be good material for naturalization, but certainly the young brothers Hrstic were if not born in Austria, at least naturalized, for they played big role in Austrian football of the 1980s.

SV Casino – or Austria, or sometimes just Salzburg, years before becoming Red Bull and strong. Normally, they played a small role in the championship, so finishing 5th, if only thanks to better goal-difference, was more than well done, perhaps even promising. Bacher and Breitenberger played occasionally for Austria and three other players, just because they were imports, completed the group of strong players – 5 was really solid group for an Austrian team. But… the foreigners, save long time Czechoslovakian international Jaroslav Polak, were virtually unknown. But old… Polak was over 30, his countryman Pirnus was 30, the Yugoslav goalkeeper Stincic – 32.

Sturm – or Raika Sturm (Graz) – finished 4th with 37 points. Well done by one of the better teams at the time. Jurtin, Pichler, Saria, and Bakota provided enough strength for high position. At the moment, Sturm was promising, although not really expected to challenge the establishment.

Wacker (Innsbruck) – or SSW – took the bronze with 38 points. Not bad and even looking like they wee going to maintain leading position, but in fact Wacker was slowly declining.

Rapid and Austria left the rest of the league far behind, running exciting race from start to finish. The arch-rivals ended with 48 points each and goal-difference decided the new champion.

FK Austria – or Austria-Memphis – lost. 22 wins, 4 ties, 4 losses, 76-27. Strong season with a bit of unfortunate end. The squad, lead by coach Halama and his assistant, the Czechoslovakian European champion of 1976 Jan Pivarnik was perhaps the strongest by names: Concilia, Sara, Daxbacher, Obermayer, Gasselich, Dihanich were all members of the strong Austrian national team at that time. Plus two Bulgarian strikers – Petko Petkov and Tchavdar Tzvetkov and Hungarian midfielder Magyar. The foreigners were aging, especially Petkov, but still played strong. Tony Polster was the greatest star not only of the team – he was the biggest Austrian hope for the future, the shining next generation ready to take over Krankl and Prohaska and still playing at home.

Rapid (Vienna) was lucky to win the title. After 20 wins, 8 ties, and 2 lost matches, they had the same points as Austria – 48. Goal-difference gave them the victory: they scored less than Austria, but had stronger defense record: 72-18. That gave them +54 to Austria’s + 49. Austria appeared stronger by names, Rapid – younger.

Austria returned to normal league format, which meant that no team was relegated from First Division after the 1981-82 season and the top 6 teams of the Second Division were promoted to restore classic 16-team league. Naturally, 6 teams went up from Third Division to the Second, to fill the empty spots. Tinkering with the league format was mostly because of financial troubles – most clubs had no enough means to support professional teams. Unfortunately, football was rapidly becoming more expensive sport in a country never crazy about it. The 10-team experiment aimed at making the clubs financially sound, but a small league reduced already smallish attendance: people were not all that happy to see teams playing 4 times against other in a year. So, back to standard league… and enlarging it with teams which were not making it more competitive. It was a vicious circle. And to make things even more difficult, especially for foreign observers, the Austrians permitted sponsors to add their names to the clubs names. This practice was unique in Europe, certainly aiming to lure firms into investing money in football, but confused forever outsiders: club names were written differently in different sources, often the sponsor’s name was given as the official club name and since they changed frequently it was always puzzling whether a new name represents an old or a new club. No certainty, because some clubs were merging or folding altogether on top of everything. The Austrian predicament was preventing the keep of continuously strong teams – for years the best Austrian players were moving abroad and since the country never had a large pool of players, foreigners were hired to replace the exodus of local talent. Not first rate stars, for money were always short for that and the exchange looked quite grim at the early 1980s: to the customary Yugoslavs and West Germans failing for one or another reason to establish themselves at home, East Europeans were bought. They were cheap…but they were also old, for Eastern Europe had age restrictions. It was rather sorry exchange – Austrian stars in their prime were replaced by veterans. In 1982-83 Austrian football had such players as Barry Hulshoff (Holland), Antonin Panenka, Ladislav Kuna, Jaroslav Polak (Czechoslovakia), Anatoly Zinchenko (USSR), Petko Petkov, Tchavdar Tzvetkov (Bulgaria), Istvan Magyar, Laszlo Pusztai (Hungary) – players, whose prime was back in the first half of the 1970s. Ladislav Kuna belonged more to the the 1960s, than to the 1970s. Players almost forgotten by now and rightly so: of course, Panenka was a great memory, but his teammate in the 1976 European champions squad, Jan Pivarnik, was assistant coach of Austria (Vienna) now. So, the situation was unchanged – the two giants from capital, Austria and Rapid dominated and the rest were hopelessly far behind. If anything, clubs were going into decline rather than improving – bigger league masked that for awhile, keeping Wacker (Innsbruck) and Sturm (Graz) in high positions and VOEST (Linz), Grazer AK (Graz), Adimra/Wacker (Vienna) outside relegation zone. None, however, possessed even faint hopes of challenging the dominant two.

As for Second Division, little hope could have been placed in it – now it was entirely made of small clubs.

Clubs like Flavia Solva, which finished 5th. Note the full name and get confused – ‘Raika’ appeared as a name of other clubs as well. Well, this team possibly did well in its own terms this season, but they were not among the possible candidates for promotion.

Four clubs competed for two promotional spots. Bregenz/Dornbirn ended 4th with 37 points – 3 more than Flavia Solva’s. Badener AC was 3rd with 38. Ahead, two teams finished with 40 points each, so goal-difference decided the Second Division winner.

Favoritner AC, a Viennese club, which lost its luster long, long ago, settled for 2nd place – it did not matter much, for they clinched promotion.

Practically unknown Sankt Veit topped the league – this happened to be the only title in the history of the club: champions of Second Division. And promoted up.

Good for winners, but neither club was to improve the top league at all… most likely, the newcomers would struggle just to survive the next season .

If the championship produced unlikely winner, the Cup dwarfed that with bigger surprise: the finalist came from Second and Third Division! The final itself was played in unlikely town – Piotkrow. Piast (Gliwice) and Lechia (Gdansk) clashed there and Lechia prevailed 2-1.

Well, how to evaluate that? A Third Division winner was something outside the reach even of English football. It was unique victory, perhaps a triumph of the spirit of the sport. Yes, at that time lower level teams playing national cup finals and even winning popped around Europe, but not third division teams. So, great victory of the underdog, something always endearing. On the other hand… Cup Winners Cup was sinking, rapidly becoming a second division tournament, losing fans’ attention.

Piast (Gliwice) had their biggest chance since foundation – a small club, they played second division at best, where they finished 4th this season, entirely out of the race for promotion. Winning the Cup, however, appeared more than reasonable bet: the gap in class between second and third division teams was usually greater than between first and second. Yet, they lost.

The unlikely victors were unusual club, certainly unheard of outside Poland. Lechia was a refugee club – officially, they were founded in 1945, but on the base of older club originally from the city of Lwow. Lwow was swallowed by USSR in 1939 and today is in Ukraine – Poles left it during the Second World War and immediately after it and the settlers in Gdansk formed Lechia. So far, the only claim to fame of the club was losing the Cup final in 1955. After that Lechia sunk to complete obscurity and third division. No wonder why – a refugee club could be looked upon with suspicion from the Communist regime on one hand and Gdansk had its own old local club – LKS – to support and to identify with. Quite possibly the political clash in Poland after 1979 helped the club to resurface.

Lechia with their first trophy ever – and so far their last.

Naturally, the Cup winners had no recognizable players, but great period started this year. They won promotion to second division in the championship. And won the Cup, thus going to play in Europe. Nobody knew it yet, but this was not a one-time wonder: on the wings of this successful season, Lechia moved up and up and eventually played well in the top league. But that was still in the unknown future – for the moment they enjoyed their best season ever. And Poland added two new names to the list of champions.