DDR, Second Division. The usual 5 groups of 12 teams each, the winners going to the promotional play-offs. Three teams relegated from each group – the only problem was Group E, where Gluckauf (Sondershausen) and Fortschritt (Weida) finished with same points and goal-difference. Play-off followed and Gluckauf kept its second division place after winning 3-0 and 4-1. As for the more important first place, this season was perhaps more competitive than before yet, nothing unusual happened. No matter what, largely former first division members claimed the top spots. Not that there were many of them, though.
Group A. ASV Vorwaerts (Stralsund) won with 35 points, leaving Vorwaerts (Neubrandenburg) 3 points behind.
Group B. Here is the typical second-division club – BSG Stahl (Brandenburg)
Third row from left : Wolfgang Rahn, Dirk Karow, Horst Kölsch, Peter Schoknecht, Thomas Klingler, Jörg Kampf
Middle row : Hubert Gebhardt, Rainer Fliegel, Siegfried Malyska, Roland Gumtz, Thomas Arendt, Rainer Wolframm
Sitting : Rene Ferch, Ralf Löffler, Eckart Märzke, Günter Peters, Gerhard Kraschina.
Not bad – they ended 5th with 28 points. Far away from promotional dreams. 1. FC Union (East Berlin) won the group with 35 points, leaving Motor (Babelsberg) 3 points behind.
Group C. Perhaps the toughest group, for there were 2 teams playing top league not long ago.
BSG Chemie (Leipzig) was not up to the task, finishing 4th with 27 points.
BSG Motor (Altenburg) finished 7th. Goal-difference decided the first place – Vorwaerts (Dessau) lost to BSG Chemie (Bohlen), freshly relegated from the top division.
Group D. BSG Stahl (Riesa), just relegated from first division, was superior by far and the most dominating group champions with 34 points. Second-placed BSG Aktivist Schwarze Pumpe had only 29.
Group E. BSG Motor (Nordhausen) had tough pursuer – BSG Wismut (Gera) – but managed to finish 2 points ahead. However, this was the team earning most points in all groups – 37 – and receiving the least goals – 16.
So far, so good. Now it was time for the most important race – the 5-team final group of winners. The best two were promoted.
Motor (Nordhausen) was not up to the struggle at all – they ended last with 3 points from 8 games, not winning even a match. As a point of curiosity: Motor used 3 Soviet players this year, all missing from this picture: Sergej Morosov – midfielder, Wladimir Schalaschow – goalkeeper, and Genadi Hisun – striker. Not the only club using Soviets, but the only one having a chance to get promotion and may be introduce foreign players in the first division.
BSG Stahl (Riesa) finished 4th with 6 points and remained in Second Division.
ASV Vorwaerts (Stralsund) also failed to impress, ending 3rd with 7 points.
1.FC Union (East Berlin) was in good form and won promotion – they were 2nd with 11 points, but it did not matter. The important point was that Union was far too strong and had no trouble qualifying.
And BSG Chemie (Bohlen) finished 1st with 13 points. They had hard time in Group C, even one may say they were lucky to go ahead, but in the final tournament they were simply the best. Going up was not exactly their problem – staying in First Division was. Their best place over there so far was 12th place. They were relegated twice. The usual problem with second division clubs – as a rule, they were relegated right away.