Second Division. 20 teams, the bottom 4 relegated to the regional leagues, the top 2 directly promoted to the Bundesliga and the 3rd going to promotion/relegation play-off against the Bundesliga 16th. Half the league fought for survival this season and about 6 teams – for promotion. Times were rough for some well known clubs – TSV 1860 Munchen, MSV Duisburg, Hertha BSC, Eintracht Frankfurt were already playing third level football and some of them were unable to climb back.
Arminia (Bielefeld) suffered the same decline – they had terrible season in which sunk to outsiders: finished last with only 22 points. Down they went… goalkeeper Kneib used to play European finals! Such fate.
SSV Ulm 1846 (Ulm) – 19th with 29 points and relegated.
FC Reimscheid – well, properly BVL 08 Reimscheid – ended 18th with 29 points and also went down. Hardly a surprise. A Japanese player – Kazama – should be noticed, along with South Korean – Kim – playing down in third level for Hertha BSC: it started with Okudera and Bum-kun Cha and continued – Japanese and South Korean popped up in West German teams regularly during the 1980s. Not in big numbers, but steadily. Now another developing country (in football terms) followed the example – USA.
SpVgg Bayreuth – now, that was lucky team: they finished 17th with 33 points and should have been relegated. But they survived.
Rot-Weiss (Oberhausen) – 16th with 33 points. Above SpVgg Bayreuth on better goal-difference and technically safe. But they had their license revoked and relegated – must have been financial troubles. One more former Bundesliga club bites the dust.
SG Union (Solingen) escaped relegation by a point – 15th with 34 points.
SV Meppen – also managed to escape relegation: 14th with 34 points. Ahead of Union Solingen either on more scored goals or better head-to-head record, for everything else was identical.
1.FC Saarbrucken – fighting for promotion in not so distant past, now fighting for survival. 13th with 34 points.
Fortuna (Koln) – one more team lucky to escape relegation: 12th with 34 points.
Rot-Weiss (Essen) – with Horst Hrubesch at the helm, but good only for escaping relegation: 11th with 34 points. Thanks to better goal-difference they were at the top of large group trying to survive.
SC Freiburg – 10th with 38 points. So far, they were modest second-division club and this season was no exception. The only impressive thing was their African import Souleyman Sane (Senegal), who was the goalscorer of the season with 21 goals – the first foreigner to be the top scorer of 2.Bundesliga.
VfL Osnabruck – 9th with 38 points and amusingly perfect record: 13 wins, 12 ties, 13 losses, 47-47 goal-difference.
Kickers (Offenbach) – 8th with 39 points. Not the end of the world, but slowly sinking into obscurity.
Blau-Weiss 90 (West Berlin) – 7th with 43 points. Now, that was practically a big success – West Berlin clubs traditionally had difficulties and tended to be small and fragile. Blau-Weiss 90 may be ranked 3rd in the city – behind Hertha and Tennis Borussia. But they played well in Second Division (could not even dream for more) when Hertha was struggling to come back from third level and Tennis Borussia was unable to do even that.
Alemannia (Aachen) – 6th with 46 points. Ended at the bottom of the group fighting for promotion. Which was their usual, really – solid, but only in terms of second-level football.
Fortuna (Dusseldorf) – 5th with 46 points. In the process of rebuilding, which so far was not going well.
SG Wattenscheid 09 – 4th with 47 points. What happened here? They were 4th with more points than the third-placed. A mystery, but to their disadvantage.
With 46 points SV Darmstadt 98 was placed 3rd. Thus, they went to the promotion/relegation play-off against the 16th in the Bundesliga – SV Waldhof Mainnheim. The play-off was highly dramatic – Darmstads won their home leg 3-2, then lost in Mainnheim 1-2. Away- goal rule did not apply and there was penalty shoot-out after extra time – Waldhof was luckier and won it 5-4. Darmstadt had to remain in the Second Division – which may have been even fair outcome, since they qualified mysteriously to the play-off.
FC St. Pauli (Hamburg) – 2nd with 49 points. Nothing mysterious about that – they had enough points and were promoted for one more try of First Division football. Modest club, they had their usual modest squad, so it was great achievement, but higher level was more than challenging. Still, it was wonderful to see them going up again.
Stuttgarter Kickers (Stuttgart) won the championship with 51 points from 19 wins, 13 ties, 6 losses and 89-49 goal-difference. Now, this was kind of a surprise, for they never before appeared as candidates to play top-league football. As second-division teams go, they were just fine and depending to well foreign players – the former Yugoslavian national team player Hotic and the Polish hero of the 1974 World Cup Kmiecik. May be fine for Second Division, but more than that would be needed for successful debut in the Bundesliga. Still, wish them good luck. It was interesting outcome: two teams from the same city rarely played together in the Bundesliga and in 1988-89 season there were going to be two local derbies – in Hamburg and Stuttgart. Hamburg derby was played before, but Stuttgart’s was going to be the first time – it happened before, but in the Second Division. In any case two underdogs were promoted this year, which was also a rarity.