Month: May 2023

First Division Second Stage. Teams started with half the points earned in the first stage, final places in the first stage given in brackets. Five teams had more or less equal chances to win the title, which was quite exciting.
FC Luzern won the 12-team first stage with 28 points – a fragile lead by a point placed them on top and
the real battle for the title was going to begin in the final stage.
Servette FC (Geneve, 8th in the first stage) ended 8th with 21 points. Top row from left: Cacciapalia, Hasler, Bonvin, Grossenbacher, Schällibaum, Rummenigge, Eriksen
Middle row: Donzé (Trainer), Favre, Bamert, Colletti, Hertig, Epars, Burri
Sitting: Kok, Fargeon, Liniger, Kobel, Sinval, Besnard
Well, the presence of Karl-Heinz Rummenige did not help… except for the novelty of continuing the tradition of famous German players ending their carriers in Switzerland – but unlike Netzer and Stielike, Rummenige did not win in Switzerland.
AC Bellinzona (3rd in the first stage) – 7th with 21 points. A big drop from top position to the bottom – only better goal-difference placed them above Servette. May be their only aim was to secure place in the champions group, who knows… and once out of danger of possible relegation, no worry. Maybe… yet, the team – by Swiss measures – was not so bad: respected foreigners (Jacubec and Rufer) and the Swiss player bound the be the most famous player of the country in the next decade – Turkyilmaz.
Xamax (Neuchatel, 7th in the first stage) – 6th with 23 points. Could not stay strong for long…
BSC Young Boys (Bern, 6th in the first stage) – 5th with 27 points. Anders Limpar was the big star, but…
FC Wettingen (5th in the first stage) – 4th with 28 points. A success of a kind – Wettingen was more often found in the Second Division, not at the top of the First Division. Great season.
FC Sion (4th in the first stage) – 3rd with 29 points. Solid season, but the title was not up to them.
Grasshopper (Zurich, 2nd in the first stage) – 2nd with 30 points. Frankly, Grasshopper was the likeliest team to win the title – they finished a point behind Luzern in the opening stage, but with the best goal-difference and outscoring Luzern by far. But… they were shaky in the final stage, losing too many games – 5 out of 14 total.
And FC Luzern triumphed at the end with 33 points. They prevailed in the first stage with 10 wins, 8 ties and 4 losses. But their strange goal-difference – 27-25 – put great doubts of their ability to win the title. The 1-point lead was reduced to zero for the final stage: their big rivals also started the final stage with 14 points – half of 27 went to the bigger number by the rules. But Luzern persisted and Grasshopper for some reason was shaky when really mattered: Luzern won 7 games, tied 5 and lost only 2 matches in the final stage – that placed them 3-points ahead of Grasshopper at the end. The team was not scoring much – 17 goals, which put them at the bottom of scorers in the final stage (only Bellinzona scored less) and on top of it their record looked pitiful compared to Young Boys’ 36 goals, but unlike the first stage this time Luzern had best defense and better goal-difference than Grasshopper.
Surprising, but well deserved title, which also was historic: FC Luzern won the Swiss championship for the first time! And so far was unable to repeat this success, so that was the most important season of the club. What a joy!
The Cup final was the chance Grasshopper to win a trophy – FC Aarau was ambitious, but still a Second Division team… Like in the championship, Grasshopper was competing with an underdog and overwhelming favourite… unlike the championship, this time Grasshopper won – 2-1. With difficulty, but they prevailed. Thus, Grasshopper won its 16th Cup and managed to end the season with a trophy. Yet… instead of a double, only a Cup and with great difficulty.

Switzerland – sharing 19-20 position with Poland. Unlike Poland, the Swiss were not going up, but kept their previous ranking. The championship formula was already established – 2-phased championship, mixing divisions in the final stage. The top divisions had 12 teams – 12 in the First Division, and Second Division – 2 groups of 12 teams each. After the familiar stage the teams proceeded to the final according to their standings: the top 8 in the First Division went to play for the title, carrying half of the points earned in the first stage to it. The last 4 top league teams went to promotion/relegation stage – 2 of them played in the final group A with the top 6 teams from the first stage of Second Divsion Group A and the other 2 of the bottom of First Division with the top 6 teams of Second Division Group B. No team carried points to this stage, it was playing a new league format and the top 2 teams in each group were going to First Division in the next season. The bottom 6 teams in the original Second Division groups also played final stage – promotion /relegation final stage, where winners of the Third Division opening stage completed the final groups. Because of the mix, only the final stage is to be given here. A win was still awarded with 2 points.
Those, going to play in the promotion/relegation after the first stage of Second Divison, were largely little known clubs, like
FC Glarus, which finished last in opening stage of Second Division Group B with 8 points.
Few better knows teams had the same fate, like
FC Winterthur, 8th with 22 points in the opening stage of Second Division Group B.
Top row from left: Ernst Rief (Masseur), Urs Güntensperger, Hans Franz, René Rüegg, Markus Michael, Rafael Chèlos, Reto Arrigoni, ?.
Middle row: ?, ?, Beat Meier, René Egli, Daniel Haefeli, ?, Christian Graf, Roland Käser, Paul Hollenstein (Physiotherapeut), Otto Luttrop (Trainer).
Sitting: Joachim Hutka, Vladimir Jakovljev, Urs Isler, Marcel Rapp, Tiziano Sacchetti, Flavio Battaini, Levent Kusogullari, Michael Gänssler.
That is the glimpse at the teams finishing the season in the promotion/relegation stage of Second and Third Division teams.
The promotion/relegation stage between First and Second Division teams was more important. As it turned out, those who started the championship in the top league escaped relegation.
Group A: BSC Old Boys (Basel, starting the season in II Division Group B) finished 8th with 7 points. ES Malley (from II Division Group A) – 7th with 10 points, FC Grenchen (from II Division Group A) – 6th with 10 points, CS Chenois (from II Division Group B) – 5th with 12 points, FC Basel (winner of II Division Group B) – 4th with 14 points,
FC Zurich (from II Division Group B) – 3rd with 14 points.
Lausanne Sport (10th in the first stage of I Division) finished 2nd with 22 points.
FC St. Gallen (11th in the first stage of I Division) – 1st with 23 points.
Well, Lausanne Sport and FC St. Gallen preserved top league places for the next season.
Group B. Etoile Carouge FC (from Second Division Group A) – 8th with 6 points, FC Chiasso (from Second Division Group B) – 7th with 7 points, FC Bulle (from Second Division Group A) – 6th with 9 points, Yverdon-Sport FC (from Second Division Group A) – 5th with 14 points,
FC Baden (from Second Division Group B) – 4th with 15 points, FC Locarno (from Second Division Group B) – 3rd with 15 points.
FC Aarau (9th in the first stage of I Division) – 2nd with 23 points, losing top place on worse goal-difference, but no matter – they were still going to play again the top league.
AC Lugano (12th in the first stage of I Division) – won this group with 23 points and 4-goals better goal-difference than FC Aarau.
So, no changes the next season: Second Division clubs remained in Second Division, and AC Lugano, FC Aarau, Losanne Sports, and FC St. Gallen stayed in First Division.

The Cup final opposed Legia (Waszawa) to Jagiellonia (Bialystok). Jagiellonia was the underdog and it have been great if they won. But Legia destroyed them 5-2.
Jagiellonia just popped-up on the big scene, but… they had no class to match one of the traditionally solid and strong Polish clubs. Really, too bad…

Legia (Warszawa) won an easy victory, judging by the result. It was their 8th Cup and, like Ruch, they had to wait a long time for this success: their last previous Cup was won in 1980. A bit strange… the players Legia had were somewhat stronger and more numerous than the stars of other teams, yet, Legia was not winning anything – their last title was from 1970, their last Cup from 1980. Finally, they added one more trophy – a hope largely for the future.

First Division. Well, the orginally announced reduction of the league was apparently abandoned at the end of the season, for according to the original idea the 13th and the 14th should have been directly relegated and the 11th and the 12th – going to promotion/relegation play-offs. But instead the 13th and the 14th went to those play-offs, which only means that the league was going to be of 16 teams again. The rule of extra point for a win with 3 or more goals – and deduction of a point for a loss by 3 or more goals – makes the final records difficult to comprehend. Well… the record of the champions makes sense: 13 ‘regular’ wins – 26 points, 6 wins by 3 or more goals – 18 points, 8 ties – 8 points, 0 loses by 3 or more goals – 0 deductions, 3 ‘regular’ losses – 0 points. 26+18+8=52 points. Fine. But looking at the record of the last in table makes no sense: 4 ‘regular’ wins – 12 points, 0 wins with 3 or more goals – 0 points, 9 ties – 9 points, 4 losses by 3 or more goals – minus 4 points, 13 ‘regular’ losses – 0 points. 12+9-4=17 points. However, Szombierki (Bytom) finished with 13 points… how come? Who knows… The 1979-80 Polish champions finished last and relegated. Again.
Gornik (Walbrzych) ended 15th with 15 points and was relegated.

GKS (Jastrzebie) was 14th with 19 points. Their Cinderella story ended with the promotion/relegation play-off against Zawisza (Bydgoszcz) – they were eliminated and relegated.
Pogon (Szczecin) – 13th with 19 points – was also out of luck: they were relegated after losing the promotion/relegation play-off against Motor (Lublin).
Wisla (Krakow) – 12th with 23 points. Top row from left: Mateusz Jelonek, Zenon Małek, Marek Motyka, Krzysztof Szewczyk, Marek Świerczewski, Kazimierz Moskal
Middle row: Zdzisław Strojek, Jarosław Giszka, Artur Gaweł, Grzegorz Maśnik, Robert Gaszyński, Wojciech Bujak, Arkadiusz Wołowicz
Sitting: Dariusz Wójtowicz, Marcin Jałocha, Zbigniew Klaja, Artur Bożek, Adam Musiał, Leszek Lipka, Ryszard Karbowniczek .
The recovery from their painful decline was not yet successful and perhaps they were very happy with good luck – originally, Wisla should have been going to promotion/relegation play-off, but the sudden change of the rule saved them.
Olimpia (Poznan) – 11th with 25 points and happy with their good luck like Wisla. LKS (Lodz) – 10th with 26 points.
Jagiellonia (Bialystok) – 9th with 29 points.
Widzew (Lodz) – 8th with 29 points.
Slask (Wroclaw) – 7th with 29 points, Lech (Poznan) – 6th with 33 points, Stal (Mielec) – 5th with 33 points, Legia (Warszawa) – 4th with 43 points.
Gornik (Zabrze) – 3rd with 45 points. Standing from left: Jan Urban, Marek Piotrowicz, Ryszard Komornicki, Joachim Klemenz, Krzysztof Baran. Front row: Miroslaw Szlezak, Jozef Wandzik, Jacek Grembocki, Ryszard Cyron, Robert Warzycha, Jerzy Misztur.
It is practically impossible to tell is the photo from 1987-88 or 1988-89 – the starting 11 are practically the same. At least in the fall of 1988 – eventually, Klemenz and Baran went to play abroad, but not before playing a good part of the first half of 1988-89 season (Klemenz 8 games and Baran – 13). Hard to tell how important was the loss of Klemenz and Baran, but Gornik finished 1st in the first half of the season and looked like they were on the road to 5th consecutive title. In the spring they dropped down and ended 3rd.
GKS (Katowice) took the silver medals with 47 points. The title was out of reach, though…
Ruch (Chorzow) triumphed with 52 points: 13 ‘regular’ wins, 6 wins with 3 or more goals, 8 ties, 0 losses with 3 or more goals, only 3 ‘regular’ losses, 48-18 goal-difference. Not the best league scorers, but the best defenders. Finishing 5 points ahead of the next pursuer speaks of dominance – but it was really the spring half when Ruch made it: after the fall half they were 3rd.
Top row from left: Andrzej Kiebus, Krystian Szuster, Bonk (?), Albin Wira, Jacek Chorzewski, Waldemar Waleszczyk, Grzegorz Wagner, Ryszard Kolodziejczyk.
Middle row: Henryk Wieczorek – assistant coach, Kapitza (?), Krzysztof Warzycha, Waldemar Formalik, Mieczyslaw Szewczyk, Leszek Wrona, Grzegorz Kornas, Dariusz Fornalak, Jozef Nowak, Jerzy Wyrobek – coach.
First row: 5th from left – Genszior (?), the rest unknown juniors.
Unfortunately, available photos of Ruch present a mystery – who is who is not clear. Some players above do not appear in the list of Ruch players – at least, not in the fall of 1988. Miroslaw Bak on the other hand is missing – well, not missing, but even in the recent years he is sometime listed as Miroslaw Bonk, instead of Bak. So, the suspect Genszior most likely is Dariusz Gesior. Wrona played in the fall, then moved to play in the USA. Because the players are not all that well known, the confusion to this very day comes from Polish mistake back in 1989:
The order ‘left to right’ is wrong.
Here the order is correct. The problem is that at the time most players were not famous. But this champion team of Ruch is also very important one: they won the 14th title for the club, thus equalizing the record Gornik (Zabrze) made in the previous season. It was also the first title Ruch won in 10 years – their 13th title was won in 1978-79 and in following decade Gornik came from the back and became the most titled Polish club – but no more!