Month: July 2021

First Division. The clubs went on strike and refused to play the last three rounds of the championship – all except Olympiakos, Panathinaikos, OFI, and Panionios. That led to 6 points deducted from the records of the rebellious teams. AEK carried further 3-point deduction for match-fixing in the previous championship. However, the penalties did not affect the race for the title – there was none, Olympiakos reigned supreme.
PAS Giannina was last with 11 points and relegated.
Apollon (Athens) – 15th with 14 points, and Doxa (Drama) – 14th with 15 points were also relegated.
Diagoras (Rodos) survived – 13th with 16 points.
Apollon Kalamarias (Thessaloniki) – 12th with 17 points.

Aris (Thessaloniki) – 11th with 18 points.
Ethnikos (Piraeus) – 10th with 18 points.
Veria – 9th with 19th points.
Larissa – 8th with 19 points.
AEK (Athens) – 7th with 19 points.
Iraklis (Thessaloniki) – 6th with 25 points. The picture may be from this season – just may be.
PAOK (Thessaloniki) – 5th with 29 points.
Panionios (Athens) – 4th with 33 points. Decided not to go on strike and thus secure UEFA Cup spot – which was unlikely, if there was no strike. If Panionios joined the strike – no such spot either, for after point-deduction they would have been behind PAOK. Call it greed? Well, sportsmanship is not the word…
OFI (Crete) – 3rd with 38 points. Their best season ever. Did not go on strike and thus maintained bronze medal position – since Panionios refused to go on strike, if OFI did, they would have ended behind Panionios and without medals.
Panathinaikos – 2nd with 39 points. Not going on strike was decided perhaps in order to keep second position, but in any case this season was disappointment: they were far, far behind the arch-rivals.
Olympiakos (Piraeus) dominated the championship and won it with massive 10-point lead. They won 22 games, tied 5, lost 3, amassing 49 points. Scored 54 goals, allowed 24. True, three wins were just awarded, for the opponents were on strike, but the champions had no real rival this season. They too did not join the strike, but in the case it was not a matter of keeping position – perhaps they felt above such things like strikes.
Just for the sake of variety, a picture of the familiar champions dressed in their reserve kit. Good work of arguably the best known Greek coach in the 1970s and 1980s – Alketas Panagoulias. The squad was of course made of Greek national team players, although less famous than some other squads of Olympiakos. Naturally, imports played major role – the 31-years old Yugoslavian striker Milos Sestic, the 26-years old Uruguayan midfielder Jorge Barrios, and just in case somebody was injured – the 22-years old Canadian striker Igor Vrablic, fresh from the 1986 World Cup finals. Compared to the foreigners Panathinaikos had (Velimir Zajec, Marton Esterhazy, and Juan Rocha), Olympiakos’ stars were somewhat less famous, but younger.

Greece – ranked 17th, a clear sign of the continuous development and improvement of Greek football. Yet, in the same time it was football full of problems and this season was perhaps the most troublesome, because 7 teams in the Second Division and 12 of the 16 First Division teams had points deducted. The championship itself was dominated by one team, so all drama happened not at the top, but at the bottom.
Beyond second division clubs like
Kalamata and
Ionikos Asteras played, out of sight and out of mind.
Second Division, 20-team strong, had a big turn-over currently: 3 teams were promoted and 6 relegated. Survival was the big concerns for almost whole league, which perhaps led many to infringement of rules, to put it mildly. Pierikos, Kavala, Proodeftiki, and Kilkisiakos had 1 point deducted; Kastoria and Charavgiagos – 2 points deducted, and Egaleo (Athens) – 4 points deducted. Three of the penalized teams ended relegated. Relegation decreased the numbers of Athens clubs by 2, Piraeus and Thessaloniki by 1 each city. However, all that was somewhat set apart from the top the table, where 3 teams – exactly the number set for promotion – were far stronger than the rest. Anyhow, just a taste of the league:
Makedonikos N. Efkarpia (Thessaloniki) ended 16th and relegated.
Athinaikos Vironas (Athens) finished 12th – 2 points better than relegation zone. Athens lost 2 teams – Egaleo (20th) and Atromitos (18th) – but the other 2 teams from the capital survived: Athinaikos, Acharnaikos (13th) and Charavgiagos (10th). None, however, was strong enough.
And Kastoria, which had their best time not long ago, was lowly now – 5th, but hardly trying to get promoted. They were not the only former top league member now playing second level football and the season’s leaders were such clubs:
Levadiakos (Levadia) finsihed 3rd with 46 points.
Panserraikos (Serres) was 2nd – they came ahead of Levadiakos on better goal-difference.
Panachaiki (Patras) won the championship with 22 wins, 5 ties, 11 losses, 71-39 goal-difference and 49 points – 3 points ahead of Panserraikos and Levadiakos. Champions of Second Division was not bad at all, but promotion back to First Division was most important and the top three teams achieved that. All of them returning to top flight and naturally hoping to stay there.

The Cup. Ujpesti Dosza met Pecs at the final, which was played in front of only 3000 fans. It was a sorry match of the record of lowest attendance at Cup final of two years earlier – something of a comment on the state of Hungarian football. Ujpesti Dosza prevailed 3-2.

One may be sorry for the underdog for they came very close to winning the Cup, but… nothing for Pecsi MSC – or Pecs.
Ujpesti Dosza won its 6th Cup and the season was wrapped finely, but the revival was somewhat relative – this squad was inferior to the team of the first half of the 1970s by far.

First Division. Two outsiders and nothing much all the way to the very top, where two teams, way ahead of the rest, fought for the title. It was old Budapest rivalry, yet a bit odd and accidental.
Eger SE finished last with 17 points. True, they were last only on worse goal-difference, but even if they had better record, they were still going down.
Dunaujvaros FC bested Eger, but they were also hopeless outsiders and relegated – 15th with 17 points.
Crouching from left: Kiss, Ruppert, Miskovicz, Nemeth, Toro, Dupai, Florian (?), Tobar (?).
Middle row: Kornis (?) – administartor, Csorba, Lengyel, Kalmar, Jokob (?) – assistant coach, A. Kovacs – coach, Vilmos (?) – assistant coach, Ress, Grof, Szulya (?) – doctor.
Top row: Kruk (?), Sagi, Boldoczky, Hollo, Menyhart, E. Kovacs (?), Lehota, Lodis (?) – caretaker.
Both relegated teams just came back from Second Division and slipped down right away.
Videoton SC – 14th with 23 points. Not in danger of relegation, but what a slump… it was ‘only yesterday’ when they played European final. Terrible decline.

Siofoki Banyasz SE – 13th with 27 points. Staying in the league was their usual aim, so the season ended well enough.
Debreceni MVSC – 12th with 28 points.
Zalaegerszegi TE – 11th with 29 points.
Gyori ETO FC – looked like they lost part of their previous name: used to be Raba ETO – was another club in sharp decline: 10th with 29 points.
Szombathelyi Haladas – 9th with 30 points. The usual.

Bekescsabai Elore Spartacus – 8th with 31 points.
Pecsi MSC – 7th with 31 points.
Vasas SC (Budapest) – 6th with 32 points.

Ferencvaros – or Ferencvarosi TC (Budapest) – 5th with 33 points. Weak season, but not surprisingly so.
Honved – or Budapest Honved FC – was only 4th with 35 points. They lost bronze medals on worse goal-difference, but really it was a decline: they looked so firmly established as leaders just a year or two ago and now were entirely outside the race for the title.

Tatabanyai Banasz SC – 3rd with 35 points, beating Honved on goal-difference. Strong period for Tatabanya, which was mostly due to their ability to keep their few stars, particularly Kiprich – not an easy task for a provincial club and may be even more difficult at this time, when the big clubs did not have enough class and in the same time were busily selling players abroad. Of course, Tatabanya was not strong enough to run for the title.
Budapest was leading, apparently recovering from the strong provincial assault in the first half of the 1980s. Familiar rivals – Ujpesti Dosza and MTK – but somewhat not the central rivals. Both teams were way ahead of the rest of the league this season.
Eventually Ujpesti Dosza lost the race and finished 2nd with 40 points.
MTK Hungaria FC – or MTK-VM, or plainly MTK – the oldest Hungarian club won the championship with 43 points: 17 wins, 9 ties, 4 lost games. 52-24 goal-difference – the best scorers in the league. What a joy for the fans – this was the 19th title of their beloved club, but the title came after almost 30 years waiting – the last time MTK was champion in 1958! However, the victory seemed accidental – the team, solid as it was, was not great. The weakness of the other teams – Ujpesti Dosza included – helped MTK considerably. The new champions did not look like a team going to stay on top, but rather like one-time-wonder. And they were… had to wait another 10 years for the next title. But it was sweet, no matter the objective reality, to see the old club winning again.

Hungary – ranked 18th. In a nut shell: decline of the leading clubs of recent years – Honved, but most alarming Gyori ETO and Videoton. Ujpesti Dosza climbed back to leading position and Tatabanya enjoyed good spell. Surprising champion to a point. Hungary was leading Eastern Europe in professionalization of the sport, no doubt – now even Second Division clubs had sponsor’s adds on their shirts – but the effect was minimal: no matter what, Hungarian football was declining for a long, long time, and the increasing exodus of best players to the West probably accelerated the process. Still 2 points for a win, twp teams relegated from the top division and two promoted from the second level.
Second Division. Half of the 20-team league were former top league members, but the season was dominated by two teams, so there was no much excitement.
Csepel FC (Budapest) ended 4th with 46 points, but this was hardly a strong season. They lost 3rd place on goal-difference to even smaller neighbour – Volan SC (Budapest) – yet the battle for 3rd place was their best.
Vaci Izzo MTE from the small city of Vac, 20 km from Budapest, was comfortably ahead of the big city clubs – they fought for first place and lost it by a point, finishing with 51 points. But such a loss was not big deal – the team won promotion anyway and that mattered most.
Kaposvari Rakoszi SC won the championship with 52 points from 21 wins, 10 ties, 7 losses. 52-35 goal-difference – neither the best scorers, nor the best defenders, but who would care? They were going to play top league football again.

Cup. FC Den Haag and Ajax reached the final and at first it looked like easy win for Ajax. But the underdog almost made a sensation – until the 83rd minute the result was 2-1 Den Haag. Bosman opened for Ajax in the 11th minute, but the team from the Dutch capital equalized just before half-time – Boere in the 43rd minute. Then Morley made it 2-1 in the 66th and only in the 83rd minute Bosman scored his second goal, driving the final to overtime. Ajax’s class prevailed there – van Basten scored two goals in the 104th and 106th minute and the favourites won 4-2.
It would have been great if FC Den Haag won against the odds, but the odds were so much against them – they had very little to really oppose to the great Ajax squad.
Ajax won the Cup, so they still had trophy at hand – although losing the championship is not something club and fans enjoy. Marco van Basten is missing in this picture, but no matter – the second great Ajax team was already made, played exciting football and winning. And Cruijff was still forcing his way – Spitz Cohn was officially the coach, but it was Cruijff coaching in reality. No coaching diploma, no problem… by now, everybody swallowed the sham, protesting did not work and he was accepted however grudgingly. As long as he was making magic, no problem. Cruijff’s squad was in a way deeper than PSV Eindhoven’s: two veterans – Arnold Muhren and Ronald Spelbos provided cool wisdom to their generally young teammates and there were also youngsters who guaranteed the future, for they were going to be the backbone of Ajax in the 1990s – Danny Blind, for example. Retirements and transfers were not going to affect greatly this team – Cruijff’s vision guaranteed smooth transitions and long term success (Arnold Muhren was the direct link with the great Ajax of the 1970s here and Rijkard and Blind were the link between this squad and the next great Ajax in 1995 – three great generations met and influenced each other during Cruijff’s reign at the helm).

First Division. 2 points for a win, the last 3 teams in the final table relegated. There was revival of Dutch football, but there was also huge division between the leading two clubs and the rest. Ajax and PSV Eindhoven had the crop of current talent and Feyenoord was still suffering with insignificant squad. Yet, Feyenoord was solid third, comfortably above the rest of the league. As for the leaders, they were obviously way above Feyenoord, but PSV Eindhoven was at its peak, leaving Ajax far, far behind.
Excelsior (Rotterdam) was the outsider this season – last and out with 19 points.

SC Veendam, quite predictably, was unable to stay in the top league longer: 18th with 23 points.
Go Ahead Eagles was the third unfortunate: 16th with 23 points.

AZ’67 (Alkmaar) sunk to insignificance – 15th with 27 points. No wonder why: nothing was left of the great squad at the beginning of the 1980s. Louis van Gaal was the sole recognizable name – and that largely in retrospect, when the name signified the great coach and not the player.
FC Den Haag – 14th with 28 points. Aging Martin Jol, back from his German and English adventures, and Tony Morley, also over 30, and familiar from the strong West Bromwich Albion team of some time back and recently returned from playing a bit in Hong Kong, were the stars of the team keeping it afloat.
FC Groningen – 13th with 30 points. Top row from left: René Eijkelkamp – Mark Verkuyl – Johan de Kock – Peter Houtman – Ron van de Berg – John de Wolf
Middle row: Rob Jacobs (trainer) – Edwin Olde Riekerink – Sjaak Storm – Pieter Beuzenberg – Edwin Bakker – Dick van Vlierden (assistent)
Sitting: Paul Mason – Claus Boekweg – Marco Waslander – Joop Gall – Jos Roossien – Jan van Dijk
A few not bad players, but John de Wolf was still too young. Peter Houtman was scoring quite a lot of goals.

HFC Haarlem – 12th with 31 points.
PEC Zwolle – 11th with 31 points.
FC Den Bosch – 10th with 32 points.
Fortuna (Sittard) – 9th with 32 points. Third row from left: Andre Van Gerven, John Linford, Bert van Harwijk, Wim Koevermans, Mario Eleveld, Sigi Lens, Anne Evers, Chris Kerver.
Middle row: Dick Voorm, verzorger Bruls, verzorger Van de Laar, Frans Thijssen, Richard Gerringa, Rene Maessen, Anton Janssen, Louk Frijns, trainer Bert Jacobs, manager J.J.M.
Sitting: Gerrie Schrijnemakers, Jos Mordang, Roger Reijnders, Willy Boessen.
For some reason the squad is not fully named in the original picture.
Sparta (Rotterdam) – 8th with 34 points. The British coach Barry Hughes was known from his work with West Bromwich Albion and the other known name – now, not then – was the 20-years old goalkeeper Ed de Goey.
Twente (Enschede) – 7th with 36 points. Slowly reestablishing itself in the top league. Standing from left: Epi Drost(assistent-trainer), Theo Vonk(trainer/coach), Kees Rijvers(technisch Directeur), Fred Rutten, Eric Groeleken, Jan Pouls, A. Paus, Patrick Bosch, Martin Koopman, Ben Weber, Theo ten Caat, Marcel Fleer, Jan Steenbeeke(masseur).
Goalkeeper at the car door: Theo Snelders.
Crouching: Ron Willems, Mika Liponen, Ulrich Wilson.
FC Utrecht – 6th with 36 points. Not bad.
VVV Venlo – 5th with 37 points. Quite a success for a rather anonymous team. Third row from left: masseur Veggel, F. Verbeek, P. Berkens, J. Taihuttu, J. Rutten, J. Roux, L. Gilkes, H. Ringels, W. Hooreman.
Middle row.: manager W. Teeuwen, G. Kopp, H. Coort, W. Jacobs, R. Libregts, R. Reynierse, E. van Berge Henegouwen, P. Corbijn, C. Burhenne, M. Verlijsdonk, elftalleider G. Janssen, G. van Rosmalen. Sitting: J. van Aerts, H. Winkelmolen, F. Nijssen, trainer S. Vergoossen, hulptrainer J. Versleijen, S. Valckx, J. Versleeuwen, W. van den Beek.
Stan Valckx eventually became a well known player, but not yet.

Roda JC – 4th with 39 points. Perhaps the best period of the club. Top row from from left: Jimmy Calderwood, Wilbert Suvrijn, Ernie Brandts, Piet Wiltschut, Danny Hoekman, Norbert Keulen (verz.)
Middle row: Jan Versleijen (ass.), Michel Broeders, Ron Jans, Henny Meijer, John de Jong, Servaas Henssen, Jan Geurden (Fysio), Rob Baan (trainer).
Sitting: Eugène Hanssen, Pierre Blatter, Jan Nederburgh, Jos Smits, Paul Jansen, Moti Iwanier.
Strongly depending on veterans Ernie Brandts, Piet Wiltschut, and Jimmy Calderwood.
Feyennord – 3rd with 42 points. Struggling with rebuilding for quite some time and not a real factor. Rinus Israel was at the helm, but still there was dependency on oldish players,who made their names with arch-enemy Ajax: Tahamata, for instance.
Ajax – 2nd with 53 points. Good and strong again, but this was not their year. Feyenoord was left far behind, but PSV Eindhoven was equally distant.
PSV Eindhoven dominated the championship – 27 wins, 5 ties, only 2 lost games, 99-21 goal-difference and 59 points. 6 points ahead of Ajax. Naming, however is in order, for the Slovakian publictaion made a little mess. Sitting from left: maz, Willy van der Kuijlen (assistent trainer), Guus Hiddink (trainer), Hans Kraaij (technisch manager), Pim Doesburg, Kees Ploegsma (commercieel manager), Huub Stevens (jeugdcoördinator), Ton van Schijndel (fysiotherapeut), Jac van de Ven (verzorger), Eric Viscaal.
Middle row: Gerald Vanenburg, Frank Arnesen, Erik Gerets, Hallvar Thoresen, Patrick Lodewijks, Michel Valke, Jan Heintze, Berry van Aerle, Jurrie Koolhof, John Veldman.
Top row: Frans van Rooij, Ronald Koeman, Willy van de Kerkhof, Rob McDonald, Hans van Breukelen, Ruud Gullit, Ivan Nielsen, Adick Koot, Lowie van Schijndel, René van der Gijp.
This was a squad almost at its peak and perhaps stronger one than the great team of the 1970s, from which only Willy van de Kerkhof still remained. The other link with the previous great decade of Dutch football was the seemingly eternal goalkeeper Pim Doesburg. The rest however, was formidable team: Gus Hiddink was coach and Hans Kraay technical director. Doesburg was already back-up to current great keeper van Breukelen. What a wealth of great talent: Gullit, Ronald Koeman, Vanenburg, van Aarle, Valke, great Belgian full back Gerets, Danish national team regulars Nielsen, Heintze and Arnesen, Norwegian Hallvar Thoresen. One can easily miss the British Rob McDonald. Great coaching stuff, great players and sky was the limit.

Holland – ranked 19th. The low rank was clear testimony of the big decline Dutch football suffered in the first half of the 1980s. Things were different now with the new talented generation, but ranking was based on past time. The structure was still the same: two professional leagues and no relegation from second level. As for the top league – Feyenoord was still suffering.
Second Division – the formula was unchanged: the top 2 teams were directly promoted up and the best teams of the four quarters of the championship played a mini-tournament for the last promotion.
Telstar finished last and evidently the decline of this club was permament.
FC Wageningen finished 18th with 23 points, 2 points ahead of Telstar.
Nothing much up to 9th place – DS’79 ended there, but they had good performance in one of the championship quarters and thus went to the promotion play-offs.
NAC Breda was 8th, Vitesse Arnhem – 7th. NEC Nijmegen was 6th, but also had strong quarter and moved to promotion play-offs. MVV Maastricht was 5th. RKC Waalwijk – 4th, but qualified to promotion play-offs and so did SC Cambuur, 3rd in the championship with 47 points.
Willem II clinched 2nd place with 49 points and directly promoted.
FC Volendam bested Willem II by a point and won the Second Division championship. 19 wins, 12 ties, 5 losses, 83-57 goal-difference and 50 points. Third row from left: Hans de Vries, Jan Schokker, Bert van der Poppe, Ab Plugboer, Jack Tol, Nico Zwarthoed.
Middle row: Leo Tholens (verzorger), Ed Vijent, Ron Voorn, Carlo Bond, Eric van Geemen, Theo Bond, Wim Jonk, Hans Bakker, Jan Brouwer (trainer-coach)
Sitting: Gert-Jan Duif, Steven van Dorpel, Jaap Schilder, Jan Klouwer, Ton Guyt, Said Abidallah.
A future big star here – Wim Jonk – but the for the moment just champion and Second Division and happy to move up to top flight.
The promotion play-off was round-robin scheme and there was really battle only for second place, which did no matter.
NEC Nijmegen was entirely out of the race – last with 3 points.
RKC Waalwijk ended 3rd with 6 points.
SC Cambuur – 2nd with 6 points.
DS’79 had so-so season, but when it mattered most, they were perfect: 5 wins and 1 loss in the promotion play-offs. 12-5 goal-difference. Nobody came even close to them. Promotion was wonderful achievement this year, but the real test was yet to come in the new season.

The Cup. Gornik (Zabrze) was unable to run for a double, but two of the current strongest teams meet at the final – Slask vs GKS Katowice. The final was played in Opole and nobody prevailed: 0-0 after overtime. In the penalty shoot-out Slask was luckier and won 4-3.
Lucky winners, but who cares – they were happy with the Cup in their hands.
GKS (Katowice) lost, but van you blame them? Losing a penalty shoot-out is most bitter and unfortunate – yet, if Katowice deserved to left the Cup, they should have scored in the regular game and beat the opposition. Really regretful is just that they were the underdog – it would have been great to win.
Slask (Wroclaw) was lucky winner, but nobody judges winners. And it was great achievement for a club without many trophies: this was their 2nd Cup and they had to wait about 10 years for this one. As for having been the favourites at the final, such claim is only relative – they were slightly more successful historically than GKS and had more strong players (on paper): Krol, Tarasiewicz, Marciniak, and Rudy vs pretty much only Jan Furtok. In reality, it was a battle between equals and Slask was a bit luckier. But the Cup was in their hands!

First Division. Apart from new rules and infringements, the season in a nut shell was rather plain: the recent dominance of Gornik (Zabrze) continued and some former leading clubs struggled and were relegated.
Motor (Lublin) finished last with 13 points. However, they were penalized with 8 points by the new rule – they lost 8 games by 3 or more goals. No wonder they were found guilty of ‘lack of motivation’ and replay of a match may have been much too cruel penalty for a team which apparently gave up already.
Stal (Mielec) was not even a pale shadow of the great team of the 1970s – they finished 15th with 17 points and were directly relegated.
Ruch (Chorzow) was the other big name in dire straits now: they finished 14th with 18 points. Not only that, but they won the least number of games in the championship – just 3! The relegation play-off gave them a chance to stay in the league, but they lost both legs against Lechia (Gdanks) 1-2 and went down. It was quite amazing, for the squad – by names – does not seem to be so bad. Miroslaw Bak and Krzystztof Warzycha were in it, for instance – true, still very young, but going to Second Division? Well, they did.
Polonia (Bytom) was 13th with 21 points. Nothing strange or new – usually they were found near the bottom fighting for survival and sometimes failing. And this time they failed – they lost the relegation play-off on away goals and were relegated.
Olimpia (Poznan) was lucky. They finished 12th with 22 points, but survived at the play-offs. The first leg – away in Bytom – did it: Olimpia managed a 2-2 tie. At home neither they, nor Polonia scored and 0-0 tie benefited Olimpia.
Lechia (Gdansk) was 11th with 24 points – the only team in the group at the league’s bottom not to be involved with illegal schemes for survival, but the brief strong period of the club clearly was finished. However, under usual rules Lechia would have been safe and not worried with relegation – the new rules put them in immediate danger, but they were still the better team and won both legs against Ruch (Chorzow) 2-1. Good for one more season at least.

Gornik (Walbrzych) finished 10th with 25 points. Nothing much, but that depends… for a modest club it was great. Gornik was enjoying perhaps their best period in history – which in their terms meant staying in the top division longer than year or two. If some teams finished the season with 29 games, Gornik played 31 – because their match against Motor (Lublin) had to be replayed. Not Gornik’s fault – Motor was found lacking motivation, so the replay looked like unjust penalty for Gornik. But all ended well.
LKS (Lodz) – 9th with 27 points. Nothing special, as usual.
Zaglebie (Lubin) – 8th with 28 points. Not bad – for them.
Lech (Poznan) – 7th with 29 points. Rather insignificant season.
Widzew (Lodz) – 6th with 36 points. Much stronger than all those bellow, but seemingly their great period came to end. No longer a title contender.
Legia (Warszawa) – 5th with 38 points. Given the squad they had the season was quite a disappointment.
Slask (Wroclaw) – 4th with 40 points. Not bad at all.
GKS (Katowice) – 3rd with 43 points. It was wonderful achievement of traditionally unheralded club. Arguably, Katowice was going through their best ever period. Jan Furtok was the big star here.
Pogon (Szczecin) – 2nd with 44 points. Who would believe it? If playing at all in the top league, Pogon were usually at the bottom of the table. Now – silver medalists out of the blue. True, they never challenged the leaders, but left behind teams like Widzew, Legia, Slask. Pogon scored most goals this season: 64 – 12 more than the dominant champions! They looked like one-time-wonder, but if so then even more intense the joy of their achievement.
Gornik (Zabrze) had no rival at all this season: 16 wins (7 with 3 or more goals), 10 ties, 4 losses (none with 3 or more goals) – that gave them 49 points, 5 more than Pogon. Scored 52 goals (second-best scoring record), allowed 21 (best defensive record). Confident leaders, winning rather easily their 13th title. Truly the best team at this period – this was their 3rd consecutive title, their dominance was well established and Gornik was enjoying strong period similar to the one they had at the late 1960s. The most solid Polish squad by far – also a similarity with the great 1960s team. Really, hard to believe they have been relegated to Second Division not that long ago.