The anniversary is coming! At the end of the season, VfL has 25 years of Bundesliga football behind it! in one piece. Few of the current Bundesliga clubs can say that about themselves. In addition to Wolfsburg, only Leverkusen and Munich have never been relegated from the upper house. 25 years of Bundesliga – before the anniversary comes, we will take you on a little journey through time. Game day after game day. In the last second division season.
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25 years – not a big anniversary in many areas. Rather unusual in the Bundesliga. Exceptionally durable. Because only eleven clubs from a total of 56 Bundesliga teams since 1963 have played more than 25 seasons in a row in the upper house.
The little VfL Wolfsburg. For a long time he was number 5 in the north – behind Bremen, HSV, Braunschweig and Hanover. Feared in the Oberliga, but the Elsterweg team had only been in the 2nd Bundesliga for six years, and the Wolves were not a household name in the Bundesliga. Wolfsburg stood for Volkswagen. Period. Until coach Uwe Erkenbrecher, manager Peter Pander and officials like Wolfgang Heitmann and Manfred Aschenbrenner There were visions and in 1992 they were promoted again to the 2nd league.
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A one-digit place was VfL’s goal for the 1996/1997 season. A cautious and realistic approach after a turbulent 18 months in which only Gerd Roggensack had led VfL to the cup final in 1995 as the successor to Eckhard Krautzun, with whom it had gone all the way to the quarter-finals. The 1:0 in the semifinals at 1. FC Köln through a goal by Siggi Reich remained the highlight under Roggensack. For promotion, he no longer led the team that had held a promotion spot for a long time.
Roggensack was replaced by ex-HSV professional Willi Reimann in October 1995 after a 5-0 loss at home against Bochum. The gnarly Hanseatic was able to advance a team that was very well known on paper with his stoic manner, so that they then remained unbeaten 14 times in a row in the second half of 95/96. After that it was a very special season.
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The 24th day of the second division season 1996/97
What was before: At the end of the Easter weekend, two trains had a serious accident in Spain within a few hours. 20 people die in the accidents, more than 100 injuries are registered. In Germany, Helmut Kohl announced on his 67th birthday that he wanted to run again for the office of Federal Chancellor. There is movement in the dispute between VfL and the injured libero Matthias Maucksch, who refused to do his rehabilitation in Wolfsburg. The parties, including Maucksch’s lawyer, sit down at a table.
The game: Mainz 05 only managed to draw against the penultimate side from Oldenburg last week, which should have been a warning to the hosts. But the worm was in there. Perhaps also because the staffing level had become thin. Holger Ballwanz was injured, just before the game Jens Keller also had to pass, Jann Jensen became VfL’s fifth libero in the second half of the season. Ulf-Volker Probst played the unfamiliar man-marker role, Sead Kapetanovic and Detlev Dammeier didn’t get along at all on the midfield flanks. Wolfsburg were lucky that they at least managed to equalize against Roy Präger, who had already been decimated at the time. Some competitors also blunder, that was the good thing. But VfL hadn’t pulled away in the fight for promotion either. “We had four or five total failures, got away with a black eye, Oldenburg was the better team,” said coach Willi Reimann.
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Table after the 24th matchday of the second division season 1996/97
1. Hertha BSC……44:24..46
2. Kaiserslautern…..43:16..45
3.VfL Wolfsburg..32:21..38
4. Mainz 05………..36:26..37
5. SV Meppen…….31:27..37
6. St. Kickers……. 29:23..35
7. Unterhaching….22:17..35
8. KFC Uerdingen…37:29..34
9. VfB Leipzig……..37:40..33
10. Entry Frankfurt…..29:30..31
11. FC Gutersloh*…..30:35..30
12. Fortuna Cologne….38:33..29
13. Carl Z. Jena……30:32..29
14. Mannheim…….32:38..27
15. VfB Lübeck……21:35..25
16. FSV Zwickau…20:35..25
17. Oldenburg……..26:50..21
18. RW Essen……..26:53..20
*3-point deduction taken into account
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In an AZ/WAZ series, we trace the path to promotion – going match by match day parallel to the new Bundesliga season. We don’t yet know what will happen at the end of 2021/22, but all fans know what the end of the 1997 season was. But some were still young at the time, some not yet born.
You can take part in this journey through time. Feel free to send us e-mails, if you like photos (as files, no originals please; to [email protected]), with your special memories of games, or post them on the relevant game day in the Sportbuzzer article that then appears at Facebook.
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