Football Journey

The Cup final opposed Vejle BK and BK Frem. Neither club had a strong championship, but both were among the traditionally winning clubs – or at least familiar to outsiders. Vejle was successful in the 1970s – 3 titles and 3 Cups; Frem lost its edge quite a long time ago – they still had more titles than Vejle, but the last time they were champions in 1944. The Cup they won twice, the last time in 1978. It was a good chance to bring a trophy to Copenhagen, which football was quietly fading away – Frem was not even playing in the top division – and Frem did their best, but in front of 17 500 fans they lost 1-2. It would have been nice the second division underdog to win, but no luck.

Vejle BK compensated for the weak season by winning the Cup – their 6th. The winners were also one of the teams with strong players, but at the moment they were mostly known at home and to scouts. Sivebaek and Rasmussen, for instance. By Danish standards, a good squad, capable of winning. Ironically, it was also the squad winning the last Cup for Vejle so far.

Denmark – ranked 22nd in Europe, or the strongest of the weakest. Brøndby IF, B 1909, and Kolding IF won promotions from Second Division. Four outsiders and four teams competing for the title in the First Division.

Viborg FF was last with 15 points.

Herfolge BK with 18 points was 15th. The last two had no chance, obviously weaker than the rest of the league.

With 23 points Kastrup Boldclub was unlucky – they ended in the relegation zone because of worse goal-difference. Those three teams were relegated.

B 1903 escaped relegation thanks to better goal-difference, but they were also outsiders this year and happy just to survive. Lucky 13th.

Not much happening up to 5th place – Vejle was 9th, but Danish football had no big favourites and ups and downs were too common to be really surprised. Hvidovre, Lyngby, Naestved, and AGF fought for the title this year. Perhaps only Naestved was a bit of a surprise. 2 points decided final places.

AGF ended 4th with 38 points, but worse goal-difference denied them medals. Still, well done.

Naestved IF finished with bronze medals, yet, may be a bit disappointed – Denmark had only a single UEFA Cup spot, so Naestved was unable to play in Europe.

Lyngby BK clinched 2nd place – and UEFA Cup participation – with 39 points. Perhaps, with mixed feelings – they prevailed over Naestved and AGF, but they also lost the title by a single point.

Hvidovre IF were the new champions with 40 points from 15 wins, 10 ties, and 5 losses. They had by far the best defensive record in the league, allowing only 25 goals in 30 matches – the next best defense was AGF’s with 33 goals in their net. Attack was not the strongest point of the winners – they scored only 42 goals: 9 clubs outscored them, the record belonging to KB – 62 goals. It was cautious approach – play not to lose, get a point here, a point there, win when possible, but without risking much – earning them the title. Nothing spectacular, rather hard work and may be a bit of luck, but champions they were and that was the only important thing. It was their 3rd title and first since 1973.

It was not the end of story for Universitatea – they also reached the Cup final, which was to be a repeat of the previous year’s final: Universitatea (Craiova) against Politehnica (Timisoara). ‘Students’ clubs both. Politehnica won the cup in 1980, so… Univeristatea wanted revenge, Politehnica – a second trophy. But Politehnica run out of a steam and had weak – or rather normal for them – season: they finished 12th in the league. The final was not a contest at all – Universitatea annihilated the cup holders 6-0.

After such loss what is there to say? Politehnica was not a great squad. Handling European and domestic competitions was apparently too much for them. Still, they were brave to the end – reaching the Cup final for two consecutive years was heroic achievement.

As for Universitatea – a double. Their first! Three titles and three Cups, all won after 1973. This season Universitatea firmly established itself as the leading club at the time and the only worthy rival of the capital’s powers Steaua and Dinamo.

 

Romania may have been down on the international scale, but the domestic championship was still lively and fairly competitive, most teams quite equal. 8 points separated the 16th from the 4th at the end – and the 4th was Steaua (Bucharest)! Two outsiders and 3 teams competing for the title. Not bad… depending at which end of the table one was. FCM Galati finished last with 18 points, FC Baia Mare – 17th with 26 points, and Politehnica (Iasi) – 16th with 30 points. Those were the relegated. Politehnica may have run out of luck, but more or less all three were usual candidates for relegation. Three teams sunk low and were happy to survive – all with 32 points and much better past than present: Progresul (Bucharest) – 15th, Universitatea (Cluj) – 14th, and ASA (Tirgu Mures) – 14th.

In the middle of the table were clubs normally expected to be just there:

Jiul (Petrosani) finished 10th.

FCM Brasov – 8th.

Unlikely teams played very well – Corvinul (Hunedoara) was 6th, ahead of Olt (Scornicesti) only on better goal-difference.

The outlandish project, what Olt (Scornicesti) was, was doing very well in the still new for them top league: 7th. Standing from left: M. Lică, P. Petre, Al. Nicolae, Ghe . Soarece, M. Leac, Ghe. Iamandi, L. Martinescu, A. Mincu.

First row: Constantin Prepeliţă, I. Ciocioană. V. Piţurcă, M. Nedea, I. Anghel, Constantin Mincu, S. Iovanescu, Constantin Ardeleanu – coach.

The birthplace of the Romanian dictator enlarged itself to a city – or something like that – and to a strong club. Such is the ‘spontaneous love of the people’, but Olt, no matter how much ‘help’ they got, were not in a position of competing with the powerful clubs from Bucharest. Not for long anyway. Steaua had a weak season, finishing 4th, but outside the championship race: such season’s were perilous to Olt, for they were merely provincial, when compared to Steaua (the Army) and Dinamo (the Police) and if there were good players in Olt, they would quickly move to Bucharest – there was pictured above: Victor Piturca. Soon the world was going to here of him, but not as Olt’s player.

The race for the title was between Dinamo (Bucharest), Arges (Pitesti), and Universitatea (Craiova). Familiar picture – Dinamo, like Steaua, even when not at its best was still a favourite. The other two were actually the best Romanian clubs of the 1970s and so far running well.

With 42 points Arges finished 3rd – actually, a very good performance, given the diminishing powers of the team.

Dinamo took the silver medals, always a disappointment for them, but wish and fact are different: Dinamo had no really strong team for about 10 years.

It may have been a race between equals, but Universitatea was arguably the best Romanian club at the time and won the title with 21 wins, 4 ties, 9 losses, 72-33 goal-difference, and 46 points – outrunning Dinamo by 3 points.

Standing from left: Ion Oblemenco (coach), Irimescu, Ştefănescu, Beldeanu, Boldici, Lung, Ciupitu, Cămătaru, Tilihoi, C.Oţet (assistant coach).

First row: Donose, Cârţu, Geolgău, Crişan, Balaci, Ungureanu, Negrilă, Purima, Ţicleanu.

One more title – nothing surprising: Universitatea was ruling Romanian football since the early 1970s. Here are the players practically defining Romanian football at the first half of the 1980s: Camataru, Lung, Stefanescu, Balaci, Negrila, Ungureanu, Ticleanu – with them Romania became familiar name again, but it was too early yet. Perhaps the best indication for good future was the champion’s coach – just a few years ago Ion Oblemenco was the star of the team bringing the initial success. Now he was young and not very experienced coach, but equally talented – a local man, who transformed quickly from a player to a coach.

 

Romania – the big unheard of news was starting to export players again. The first foreign transfer since the early 70s was Nicolae Doru.

It was the East European pattern to the dot: without fuss an aging player, not meaning much inside or outside the country went to a smaller market. Doru was 28 years striker, who never played for the national team – he appeared 5 times for the Romanian Olympic team and had 1 appearance for the B national selection. He was a key player of Arges (Pitesti) and a local star, but nothing more than that. He was sold to Panathinaikos (Athens) and that was that. Foreign transfers were so much downplayed at home, that today some hail him as a big legend: the first Romanian to play abroad. It is untrue, of course, but today the word ‘legend’ is inflated to the point of ridiculous. Anyhow, Doru was the first of the second wave of Romanian players going to the West. Romania did the transfer in the summer of 1980, ahead of Bulgaria by half an year, yet, after the 1980-81 season only 2 East European countries were left stubbornly not exporting players and they will stay so ‘pure’ to the collapse of the Communism – DDR and Albania.

One other reason the transfer of Doru went unnoticed was that Romania hit rock bottom: the UEFA 5-years ranking placed it 21st – the last country having the right to bring 2 teams to the UEFA Cup and in great danger to become 1-team country, because Denmark was very close. The 1970s were disastrous decade – nothing good happened after playing at the 1970 World Cup finals. Romania was unable to qualify for neither World Cup nor European finals, the clubs were quickly eliminated in the European tournaments, a really lost decade and the beginning of the 80s was not looking very promising. The Second Division, although not a great indication of the state of the game, was still a bit indicative – Rapid (Bucharest) sunk there. To play with clubs like

Progresul (Corabia), which made the bulk of the three second division groups. Standing from left: Mitroi, Stefan, Bănulescu, Velica, Popescu, Cîrciumaru, I. Bîrţan, Tudorache, Grecu.

Squatting : Maereanu, Mialţu, V. Bîrţan, Dincă , Ciolca, Băbălău,  S. Vlad.

FCM Braila was another typical example of second division clubs: not looking up, rather concerned with not going down to the third level.

Of course, there were clubs having played in the top league and mainly they were the prime candidates for promotion.

Petrolul (Ploesti),

CFR (Cluj), few others – those were the expected winners and normally such clubs won promotions at the end – this season they were CS Targoviste, FC Constanta, and the best known of them all

UTA (Arad). All three returning to top flight to give one more try.

 

Four superior clubs, but… it did not show in the Cup tournament: lowly Grazer AK and Austria (Salzburg) reached the final. Austria won the first leg of the final 1-0. In the second leg Grazer AK came back and tied the result: the regular time gave them 1-0 win. In the overtime they eventually scored a second goal and prevailed.

What is there to say? Austria tried hard, but was unable to win. It was a team struggling just to keep a place in the top league, so at the end losing the cup final could be just fair.

GAK (Graz) triumphed and their joy was great.

Drinking the bubbly from the cup is what winners do. This should be a legendary team: GAK was found in 1902 and so far won absolutely nothing. If there was any buzz, it was more likely addressing their local rivals Sturm. First trophy at last, even besting Sturm, for the enemy was unable to win the title after all. Yet, GAK had no particularly memorable squad and there should be any important note about their victory it should go to the football in the city: Graz was becoming a worthy rival of Vienna, at least for the moment, with its both clubs running strung.

Austrian football plunged to its lowest in 1980-81 season – that is, on club level. At the end of 1981 Austrian clubs ranked 31st in Europe, only Iceland was behind them. For the 5-year table, used by UEFA to determine the number of participants in the next year UEFA Cup Austria was 20th. No wonder the season hardly left memories.

The winners of the 3rd Division leagues, climbing up were ASK Salzburg (West), Favoritner AC (East), and

Flavia Solva Wagna (Centre).

Going down to 3rd Division were the last three of the 16-strong Second Division: Bregenz/Dornbirn (14th), 1. Wiener Neustadter SC (15th), and SCA Sankt Veit (16th). Not much stirr up the table: most of the league was just kicking the ball. First Vienna FC finished 3rd with 37 points. Austria (Klagenfurt) was 2nd 6 points ahead. If First Vienna did not threat Austria, so Austria was not a candidate for promotion: Wacker (Innsbruck) dominated the league – they won 22 matches, tied 6, and lost only twice, thus leaving Austria 7 points behind and returning quickly to the top league.

The small First Division was divided into three distinct groups, a clear testimony of the troubles of Austrian football: even 10-team league was not competitive. Two outsiders were concerned only with survival – SV Austria (Salzburg) managed to finish 9th with 23 points. With 21 points SC Eisenstadt was last and relegated.

The next 4 clubs were much stronger than the outsiders, yet mush weaker then the top four. Wiener Sport-Club was 8th with 32 points.

Linzer ASK (Linz) – 7th, with 34 points.

VOEST (Linz) – 6th with 36 points. A club slowly sinking down they were.

Grazer AK (Graz) – 5th with 38 points.

And lastly the four strong teams, which may have been head and shoulders above the rest of Austria, but were not truly equal among themselves: the points were close, but the real battle was, as ever, between Rapid and Austria. Admira-Wacker (Vienna) finished 4th with 42 points.

Rapid (Vienna) had to be satisfied with bronze – 43 points gave them nothing more. Well, considering that their newest recruit was the 38-years old Czechoslovak Frantisek Vesely, third place was just right.

Sturm (Graz) took the silver medals and one may be sorry they lost the race for the title by a point. Sturm was more or less the only team leaving good impression, but let’s face it: more or less, Sturm established itself as the third strongest Austrian club by that time. Third! Even when really strong, they still were mostly candidates for silver or bronze, not gold.

Austria (Vienna) won its 15th title. The strongest team in the recent years, traditional favourites and so on, but it was not an easy victory – Austria clinched the title by a single point, finishing with 20 wins, 6 ties, and 10 losses. They scored the most goals by far – 77, with Rapid’s 69 second. But Sturm had much better defensive record – they lost 8 games, allowing 39 goals in the process. The champion’s defense allowed 46, which was 6 goals more than lowly Linzer ASK allowed.

The Polish Cup final opposed one of the season’s favourites to a second division leader: Legia (Warszawa) and Pogon (Szczecin). Legia prevailed only in the extra time – 1-0.

Pogon was unable to complete its returning to the top league with bigger success, but still it was delightful season. Legia had good reason to be happy too, finishing with a trophy.

Standing from left: Władysław Stachurski (assistant coach), Paweł Janas, Ignacy Ordon (coach), Edward Załężny, Stefan Majewski, Mirosław Okoński, Jacek Kazimierski, Zenon Olszak (club’s chief), ?, Zbigniew Kakietek, Krzysztof Lasoń, ?, dr Henryk Soroczko, Ryszard Kosiński .

First row: Witold Sikorski, Janusz Baran, Marek Kusto, Krzysztof Adamczyk, Henryk Miłoszewicz, Stanisław Sobczyński, Adam Topolski, Ryszard Milewski, Krzysztof Sobieski.

Difficult victory, but a second consecutive Cup was just fine accomplishment.

Poland – 19th in Europe. The previous season the country had its weakest ever champion, so any winner would have been better after that, theoretically. Objectively, Polish clubs were traditionally made in such a way, so not really strong was able to emerge: they were fairly equal and momentary form more or less ruled. On top of everything, the country entered a bitter decade of social unrest, demanding political and economic changes – no doubt, football was also affected. But no matter, the game was played and no championship was interrupted.

The Second Division had familiar winners: in Group 1 Piast (Gliwice) and Pogon (Szczecin) competed for the first place.

Pogon won with 41 points. High scoring was their trade mark this season.

Group 2 was a bit more competitive, but here too a duel formed – between Huthink (Krakow) and Gwardia (Warszawa).

With 42 points Gwardia clinched victory by a point, strongly depending on their excellent defense.

The newly promoted teams were very familiar with top league football – they were just returning to 1st Division football.

The First Division offered its usual tough battle between similar teams, which at the end made for unpredictable championship – at least on the top of the league. At the bottom Odra (Opole) was hopeless outsiders, finishing 16th with measly 18 points. Three teams fought for escaping the other relegation place – Zawisza (Bydgoszcz) lost the race and ended 15th with 23 points.

Up the table three clubs were noticeably in crisis: Ruch (Chorzow) – 7th, Stal (Mielec) – 9th, and Gornik (Zabrze) – 12th. The leading clubs of the 1970s were down now.

Gornik’s photo is quite a strong example of typical Polish troubles: it was made just before the start of the ‘good-bye’ match of Jerzy Gorgon – in Switzerland against Sankt Gallen, just after he was sold to the Swiss club. With Gorgon gone, Gornik became just as the most Polish teams – with one or none star in the squad.

Motor (Lublin) – a typical example of most Polish teams. They finished 10th this year – former leaders, like Gornik, were just like Motor by now.

And may be because of that there was fierce competition for the title – between 6 clubs, which left the rest far behind. Four of them finished with equal points – 36 each. Head-to-head results, not goal-difference, decided positions in such occasions, so Baltyk (Gdynia) took the 6th place – 6 points ahead of Ruch, 7th. Yet, Baltyk was more similar to Motor than to other favourites. But none was really outstanding as a team, so momentary form was the prime factor.

Legia (Warszawa) ended 5th.

From left to right: Mirosław Okoński, Janusz Baran, Waldemar Tumiński, Ryszard Milewski, Krzysztof Adamczyk, Henryk Miłoszewicz, Marek Kusto, Paweł Janas, Stefan Majewski, Jacek Kazimierski, Adam Topolski.

Compared to Gornik – a strong squad… some well established stars, some up and coming, some very promising. Kusto, Okonski, Janas, Majewski should have been able to make the difference even without further help – but they were 5th at the ned.

Slask (Wroclaw), similar to Legia and mo long ago looking very promising, finished 4th.

Szombierki (Bytom), the surprise champions of the previous year, finished 3rd – well, bronze after gold suggests a strong team. Szombierki was not and running on enthusiasm went only that far – to come, however minimally, ahead of Legia, Slask, and Baltyk.

Wysla (Krakow), arguably the most consistent team at the time, finished 2nd with 37 points.

First row from left: K. Gazda, L. Lipka, A. Iwan, A. Nawałka, K. Kmiecik, J. Krupiński, J. Jałocha, A. Targosz, H. Szymanowski.

Middle row: Z. Szczotka (masseur), L. Franczak (assistant coach), K. Budka, P. Skrobowski, M. Motyka, J. Adamczyk, R. Gaszyński, S. Gonet (coach), M. Holocher, Z. Płaszewski, M. Wróbel, J. Kowalik, Z. Kapka, W. Lendzion (assistant coach).

Looking at the names, this should have been the number one team – and they came close, but lost the title by a point. So, it was not truly superior squad… measly 1 one point ahead of Szombierki.

Two points better than Wisla finished a club so far winning nothing.

Widzew (Lodz) won their very trophy ever with 39 points – 14 wins, 11 ties, 5 losses, 39-25 goal-difference. Today is easy to say they ‘but of course, they had Boniek’. True, they had him and he was may be the biggest star in Poland at the moment, but he was not yet the world-class star – not until 1982. Widzew depended on tough defense – they had the best defensive record this season in the league, but their striker power was weak – 5 clubs, including 11th placed Arka (Gdynia) outscored the champions. Widzew simly squirreled points, careful not to lose matches, and at the end of the championship they were rather lucky to finish ahead of the pack of 6 fairly unexceptional rivals. But win they did and it was fantastic occasion.

Widzew (Lodz) was found in 1910, although there is a bit of uncertainly – some sources give 1922 as their first year, which could be the year of making a football team and 1910 referring to the foundation of all-sports club. So far, Widzew had humble existence – not only they never won anything, but they were somewhat trailing in the shadow of their local rivals LKS (Lodz). But after 1975 things eventually changed: LKS, famed for Jan Tomaszewski, was fading, Widzew, having the rapidly climbing up to stardom youngster Boniek, moved also up. But Boniek was just one player, surrounded by rather insignificant teammates. And the new champions were still insignificant squad, except they got two important additions in the summer of 1980: the well remembered abroad Wladislaw Zmuda, perhaps the top central-defender at the moment, arrived from Slask (Wroclaw) and already included in the Polish national team talented goalkeeper Jozef Mlynarczyk came from Odra (Opole). Suddenly Widzew came at par with the typical strong Polish teams: a few stars made the difference and Widzew’s as well dispersed group – Mlynarczyk between the goal-pots, Zmuda in front, commanding the defense, Zbigniew Boniek in midfield, and bright young talent, soon to be a major star – Wlodzimierz Smolarek in attack. The skeleton was strong enough to compete with similar teams and eventually won the league. Apparently, 4 strong players were enough – first-time winners usually become legendary teams for their fans and are remembered forever: it is hardly the case with this team – the stars are remembered, but not the whole team. Well, it was great, locally, and Widzew got the edge from LKS – they also won one Polish championship, but long time ago, so currently Widzew was on top. Good, but only the next season could tell if they were not only one-time wonder.

Whatever the championship was, the Cup tournament brought everything to what was associated with Swedish football: equal teams, no favourites. Kalmar FF and IF Elfsborg reached the final, the teams almost relegated this year. The final was played in Stockholm in front of only 2.245 – the lowest attendance in recent years and perhaps one of the lowest ever gathering at the cup final. Kalmar FF, which ended bellow its opponent in the league, simply destroyed Elfsborg – 4-0.

A heroic effort, reaching the final, but IF Elsfborg was hardly a winning team. But all depends on size – for a club like Elfsborg playing at the Cup final and keeping a place in the top division amounted to excellent season.

Of course, winning the Cup was a success – and Kalmar FF was rarely successful. In fact, this was their very real success – the first trophy they ever won. The heroes were largely unknown and remained unknown – save for Benno Magnusson, now in his last playing years. At the end of the year Kalmar FF was happy again, after winning the promotion/relegation play-off against IFK Eskilstuna and preserving first division place.