DavidWangerin
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roots of the bundesliga
from The Fussball Book (1993)
written with Derek Megginson
Writing a statistical
history of German football which begins with the year 1963 may be kind
of like playing one side of a record witout ever playing the other. But
many would argue that the game's modern era began in earnest with the formation
of the Bundesliga, and it is this milestone which has been chosen, rightly
or wrongly, as the starting point for this book.
It may seem incredible that Germany, one of the most powerful footballing
nations on earth, did not have a professional national league until thirty
years ago. But when one considers how for many centuries the German nation
had been fragmented, and that for 35 years after the Second World War it
was split in two, perhaps this is not too surprising. Though German football
did not have a unified First Division until the formation of the Bundesliga,
a championship to determine the national Deutscher
Meister had been contested on a regular basis as far back as
1903, when VfB Leipzig's name was the first engraved on the championship
plate. Entrants for the competition were drawn from the various regional
leagues which operated across the country, with clubs like Phönix Karlsruhe
and Viktoria Berlin crowned national champions in the early years.
The German FA, the Deutscher Fussball Bund
(DFB), was founded in 1900. Even during its infancy, there had been a great
deal of discussion about forming a national league, but not until the 1920s
were any concrete proposals put forward. These always seemed to be of secondary
importance, however, when compared to the continuing debate about amateurism.
For many years, the German FA had insisted all its clubs remained
scrupulously amateur. The normal length of a ban for any player caught receiving
‘payments’ was six months, as the national goalkeeper Willibald Kress once
found to his cost. Bans of up to three years for serious offences were not
uncommon. But the progressive clubs in the west of Germany continued to
push for the legalisation of professionalism and made no secret of the fact
that they wanted the entire system overhauled. Each time, however, their
proposals were met with apathy or antagonism from the other areas of the
country. In the early 1930s, an Extraordinary General Meeting of the DFB
was called to decide on the introduction of professional football. But after
Hitler seized power, the political situation became unstable and the idea
was shelved. In the late thirties there were again definite proposals to
form a Reichsliga but the outbreak of war put paid to these plans.
In the 1950s — and in particular after West Germany's World Cup triumph
in 1954 — there were renewed proposals from clubs in the Ruhr district and
neighbouring areas for a national West German league. But once again, the
other regions voted against them. As with Brazilian football today, each
regional association resented handing over its power and authority to a
national body. So the German championship continued to be decided by an
end-of-season playoff — long after East Germany had developed its own national Oberliga.
Still, the pressure for change continued to be applied, and soon
it came to be acknowledged that many of the country's top teams were furtively
offering compensation of one sort or another to players in order to maintain
a competitive edge. In some cases, players were promised easy ‘jobs’ by
wealthy businessmen with links to a particular club. The whole concept of
‘amateurism’ was coming under serious threat, and with the revenue being
generated by huge crowds for the top matches, a lot of money was available
to the dishonest.
The first real breakthrough came in 1960, when the Saarland representative
proposed a ‘reduction in the number of clubs fielding professional teams,’
and a working party was set up to study the whole footballing system.
The 1961 Annual General Meeting of the German FA presented the breakthrough
that the progressive clubs had been waiting for. The DFB accepted in principal
the idea of forming a Bundesliga and
at the following year's AGM in Dortmund on July 28, 1962, the clubs voted
103-26 to develop a national league. Amongst the decisions taken were:
- that
the proposed Bundesliga would consist of not more than sixteen clubs;
- that
only those clubs already in one of the five Oberligen could apply
to join;
- that
sporting criteria should take precedence over economic and other factors;
- that
the league would consist of five clubs from the Oberliga South, five
from the West, three from the North, two from the Southwest and one
from Berlin;
- that
full-time professional players would finally be allowed.
Forty-six clubs applied to join the Bundesliga. The steering committee designed a system which evaluated
the clubs' performances over the past twelve years, whilst giving greater
weight to the most recent finishes. Newspapers soon took to publishing a
number of rather speculative calculations, all of which were strenuously
denied by the DFB — perhaps because no set formula really existed.
In north Germany, there was little doubt Hamburg SV, who had won
the last nine Oberliga North championships, and Werder Bremen, the eternal
runners-up, would be invited to participate in the new league. The third
spot, though, was up for grabs, with little to choose between Eintracht
Brunswick, Hanover 96, VfL Osnabrück, Holstein Kiel, and St Pauli.
In the end, Brunswick's third place Oberliga finish probably swung the decision
in their favour. In Berlin, Hertha BSC faced stiff competition for
a place with local rivals Tasmania 1900. Tasmania had been the more successful
side in the Oberliga Berlin in recent years and were financially more stable.
But Hertha got their 1962-63 season off to a dream start. Halfway into the
season, as the selection process heated up, they were ten points clear of
Tasmania.
In the west, it was assumed that the three strongest sides in recent
seasons — 1.FC Cologne, FC Schalke 04, and Borussia Dortmund — would be
accepted. Had the Bundesliga been formed a few years earlier, thre is little
doubt that Rot-Weiss Essen would also have been included, but they had since
fallen into the Second Division. Meanwhile, city rivals Schwarz-Weiss Essen
had been heading in the opposite direction, and as the selection process
began, were well in touch with the Oberliga West leaders. But as relative
newcomers to the top flight, their recent playing record couldn't compete
with the likes of Preussen Münster and Alemannia Aachen, two clubs
who seemed more likely to complete the western line-up.
There was, though, a slight complication. With Münster in the
Westphalian wilderness, Aachen virtually in Belgium and the three other
sides too strong to leave out, the densely-populated lower Rhine area would
be excluded from the new league. If the Bundesliga was to be a true national
league, it was logical to include a representative from this region. So
there was hope for Schwarz-Weiss Essen — until they fell apart in the latter
part of the season. The darkness over the Niederrhein
was lifted, though, thanks to an inspired performance from a
little-known outfit from Duisburg called Meiderich SV. They finished third
in the Oberliga behind Dortmund and Cologne, and stood an excellent chance
of filling the void.
In the southwest, there wasn't much to choose between the region's
top four clubs. 1.FC Saarbrücken and 1.FC Kaiserslautern seemed the
likeliest two teams to be admitted, but in recent years small-town Borussia
Neunkirchen and FK Pirmasens had staked their claim with a string of consistently
impressive finishes. Consequently, the DFB was expected to make their decision
about this region's representatives at the latest possible date.
Five places were reserved for clubs from the Oberliga South, and
there was little doubt that the playing records of 1.FC Nuremberg, Eintracht
Frankfurt, Kickers Offenbach, VfB Stuttgart and Karlsruhe SC had earned
them the right to play in the Bundesliga. The city of Munich, then, seemed
destined to be left out, with Bayern having occupied a place near the top
of the Oberliga only since the start of the decade, and city rivals TSV
1860 foundering in recent years.
The Munich problem fuelled the fire for advocates of an eighteen-team
rather than a sixteen-team Bundesliga. With TSV and Bayern both in contention
for the title, it seemed possible that an Oberliga champion would be excluded
from the new league. Or perhaps, with Stuttgart having started their season
so atrociously, a place was still there for the taking.
Stuttgart eventually straightened themselves out to finish sixth
— but Munich 1860 won the league. The unfortunate club to lose out would
be Offenbach, in spite of the fact that unofficial measurements rated them
as the second-best side in the region. But Offenbach suffered from being
very near geographically to Frankfurt — a very handy explanation for the
DFB in denying them Bundesliga status.
At a meeting on January 11, 1963, the first batch of clubs were informed
that they had officially been accepted as founder members of the Bundesliga.
They were: 1.FC Cologne, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 from the West;
Hamburg SV and Werder Bremen from the North; Eintracht Frankfurt and 1.FC
Nuremberg from the South; 1.FC Saarbrücken from the Southwest; and
Hertha BSC from Berlin.
The decision to include Saarbrücken at this early stage raised
a few eyebrows, particularly amongst supporters of southwestern clubs Pirmasens,
Neunkirchen and Kaiserslautern, who felt Saarbrücken had hardly demonstrated
any superiority on the pitch. The DFB pointed out that Saarbrücken
was the biggest city of the four, with more convenient motorway connections
than the likes of Pirmasens, and at the time of the decision 1.FC Saarbrücken
were top of the table (although not by much; eventually they drifted out
of the top four, and missed out on the playoff for the national championship).
Kaiserslautern wound up winning the Oberliga Southwest, while Neunkirchen
pipped Pirmasens for second place and performed well in the playoffs, only
just missing out on an appearance in the final.
The nine clubs selected had seven months to prepare for the Bundesliga,
which was to kick off in August. This gave them what must have been a considerable
advantage. (Indeed, Dortmund went on to win the last fragmented German championship
in the spring of 1963.) At the same meeting, fifteen clubs had their applications
rejected, including Borussia Mönchengladbach and Bayer Leverkusen.
Two other clubs, Wuppertal SV and Sportfreunde Saarbrücken, withdrew
from contention. With twenty clubs contesting the remaining seven places
in the new league, a bitter struggle began. But proposals to increase the
size of the league to eighteen or even twenty clubs were ultimately rejected.
On May 6, 1963 — just three and a half months before the start of
the new league — the committee reached their final decision and announced
the remaining seven Bundesliga clubs: VfB Stuttgart, Karlsruhe SC and TSV
1860 Munich from the south; Preussen Münster and Meiderich SV from
the west; Eintracht Brunswick from the north, and 1.FC Kaiserslautern from
the southwest. All thirteen of the clubs left out by the decision immediately
launched appeals, but each was unsuccessful. Kickers Offenbach and Alemannia
Aachen even took the DFB's decision to court. Both claimed geographical
considerations had unfairly taken precedence over performance on the pitch.
But there was a certain inevitability that some clubs would suffer the misfortune
of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It's interesting to think how the course of German football might
have been altered had the DFB's selection criterion been different. Perhaps
Hamborn 07 or Westfalia Herne would have finished strongly in the inaugural
Bundesliga season and gone on to win the Bundesliga a few years down the
road. Maybe the names Schwaben Augsburg or VfR Mannheim would mean more
to a German fan today than Werder Bremen or VfB Stuttgart. Who knows — European
football might even have been littered with regular appearances from Viktoria
89 Berlin or Wormatia Worms. And, had their original applications been declined,
maybe few outside Germany would have ever heard of 1.FC Kaiserslautern or
Eintracht Frankfurt.
But the summer of 1963 was not a time to reflect — it was a time
to look ahead. And on August 24, the Bundesliga kicked off.
©David Wangerin 1993.
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