First Division spring Championship final phase. Positions and points in the first phase will be in brackets. Strange it may be, but the teams ended the season with combined records from first and second phase, but how the points were counted? Half of the points earned in the fall were carried to the spring and the total was made from that plus all spring points earned.
VSE Sankt Polten (4th in the first phase with 25 points) ended 8th with 17th points. If Vorwaerts Steyr had the 1975 European player of the year, St. Polten boasted the 1978 World champion and best player Mario Kempes. Now 35-years old Argentine was playing his second season with St. Polten and third season in Austria, where he started with First Vienna. Along with him played the typical for Austrian football Yugoslav players – Petrovic and Brankovic – plus two well respected Austrians – Ogris and Pichler – but the team either lost steam or interest in the spring final stage.
Grazer AK (7th in the fall with 22 points) finished 7th with 20 points.
Wiener Sportclub (8th in the fall with 20 points) ended 6th with 22 points. Danish well known defender Soren Busk (36) left before the season and the big name was the Yugoslav Petar Brucic (36) best known for his successful years with Rapid (Vienna).
First Vienna FC (6th with 22 points in the fall) took 5th place with 26 points. First Vienna had wonderful spring – they lost only 1 game, tied 9 and won 4.
Rapid (5th with 24 points in the fall) finished 4th with 29 point. Not a factor this season. Rapid had 5 foreigners – some of them were little known (Mladen Munjakovic -Yugoslavia, Gudmundur Torfason – Iceland, and Daniel Rodriguez – Uruguay), but the last two were very well known, however, in the Austrian tradition, old: the former Soviet national team midfielder Sergey Shavlo (second season with Rapid, 33 years old) and the former Yugoslav national team striker Zlatko Kranjcar, who played many years for Rapid, now 33 years old.
FK Austria (Vienna, 3rd in the fall with 30 points) finished 3rd with 31 points. They were the only club with different approach, not looking for old foreign stars, but for current vintage – the Argentina striker Jose Percudani (24) arrived in 1987 from Independiente (Avellaneda). He was joined by Enrique Baez (23), arriving from Wanderers (Montevideo) in 1988. Both were national team players when Austria signed them, Baez played in the 1987 Copa America, so they appeared to be highly promising reinforcements. However, when they donned the violet shirt of Austria, neither was called again to the national team of his country. It could be said that Austria was a dead end for them… and Austria did not win the title this year.
FC Admira/Wacker (2nd with 31 points in the fall) had a rare strong season, but managed only 2nd place at the end with 33 points.
FC Swarovski Tirol (Innsbruck) won both first and second phase – 15 wins, 3 teas, 4 losses, and 33 points in the fall, followed by even better spring final – 9 wins, 4 ties, 1 loss. Thus, their final record was 24 wins, 7 ties, 5 losses, 78-38 goal-difference, and 39 points – 6 more than Admira/Wacker. Great victory for the new club and it was not all.
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