Czechoslovakia – ranked 14th. Political changes – ‘the Velvet Revolution’ – dominated the country, but football was affected by them as well: sponsorship and shirt advertisement on one hand; larger and unrestricted export of players on the other hand. On the surface, football was the same as before – Sparta dominated, Dukla was still strong and not falling into disgrace this season. Slovak football was weaker than the Czech. There was good batch of talented players, now further motivated to play well so to get contracts with bigger foreign clubs.
Second Division – along with the Cup, it was divided into Czech and Slovak leagues of 16 teams each. The winners were promoted and the last 2 in each league – relegated, but that depended on which teams were relegated from the First Division. As usual, former top league members were on top, not much challenged by any rivals.
The Czech Second Division. At the bottom ended TJ VP Frydek-Mistek with -1 points. That’s right: minus one! The club was penalized with 6 points deduction, but the team was so weak, they never managed to compensate – they won only 1 match, tied 3, and lost the rest 26 games. Relegated, of course, and the only one from this league going down, for no Czech team was relegated from First Division.
Up the table, just a few notes: TJ Slovan Elitex Liberec, which soon was going to play quite significant role of Czech football, so far gave no sign of ascent – they ended 13th with 22 points. A place ahead of them was long-time top league member TJ SKLO Union Teplice – they were in decline for quite some time and continued to be weak. TJ Dynamo Ceske Budejovice gave no sign of ambition and desire to go back to top flight: 7th with 32 points. TJ Skoda Plzen was stronger to all the league save one team – they finished 2nd with 42 points, but did not quite contested the top position.
TJ RH Spartak ZVU Hradec Kralove easily won the championship with 47 points: 21 wins, 5 ties, 4 losses, 54-16. Climbing back to First Division and hoping to settle there.
Slovak Second Division. Similar to the Czech league – two teams stronger than the rest, one quite stronger than the other. Because both relegated teams from First Division were Slovak, the last 3 teams here were relegated to third level – bad luck for Banik Prievidza, the 14th placed, which normally would be safe. The newcomers to the league were not very impressive, particularly Lokomotiva Kosice, which had been great during the 1970s, but in the 80s went down the Third Division and now painfully climbed back a bit,
Just returning to Second Division, Lokomotive finished 12th with 28 points. It was not just them, but actually the whole city of Kosice: their other club, now renamed to Jednota, was also down in Second Division and suffering: Jednota finished 3rd, but distant 3rd with 39 points.
TJ Montostroj Senec – formerly PZN, the other newcomer from third level, did much better than Lokomotiva: 6th with 30 points.
ZVL Zilina, usually trying to climb back to the top league, was quite weak this season: 9th with 28 points. Normally, fewer former top league members played in the Slovak league – compared to the Czech – and this season they were only 4 such teams: Jednota Kosice, Lokomotiva Kosice, ZVL Zilina and Tatran Presov. With 3 of them quite weak, practically unknown team climbed up and to some degree aimed at the top position – but Slovan Agro Levice was not that good and settled for 2nd place with 44 points.
As many times before, Tatran – now with slightly changed name to Tatran Agro from Presov won the championship with 47 points: 23 wins, 1 tie, 6 losses, 78-27. It was so familiar: Tatran and ZVL Zilina meandered constantly between First and Second Division. When in Second Division, they instantly won and went back to the top league, only to drop down just as quickly. Now ZVL Zilina was weak and out of the game, so Tatran practically had no rival, eventually finishing 3 points ahead of the next pursuer and earning promotion.
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