Austria – ranked 10th. The eternal question – how objective is the objective? Looking at the ranking now, one can think Austrian football was in good shape. Ranked well above France and Holland. Ranked above recently exciting Romanians. Ranked that high by UEFA, using the most objective criteria – results. But results are often chancy… you have good luck with a draw and go ahead; mighty teams meet each other meantime and one is eliminated. Cold results of 5-year span are both objective and frivolous even for clubs like Real Madrid and Bayern. Behind the cold results there was also objective reality: Austrian football was rather going down. The great generation of Krankl, Pezzey, and Prohaska aged and going into retirement. The new generation was not similarly talented. Clubs were not in good financial health for a long time already and apart from Austria and Rapid generally struggled – amalgamation, relocation, renaming happened frequently. The efforts of the Federation were more desperate than anything: restructuring of the championship formula and shrinking of the top league aimed at financial stability and keeping competitive edge, but it was a clear sigh of crisis – football was not the most popular sport in Austria and the whole football culture was not as fanatical as elsewhere, so nobody cared all that much to pour his money in it. Gates were low, sponsorship may have been a little forced. Top talent preferred to play abroad for higher pay and in more exciting teams and championships. Meantime Europe was changing rapidly and Austrian clubs had difficulty hiring even relatively cheap East European imports – Greece and Turkey were paying more. Even Rapid and Austria were having difficulty making and keeping strong squads and smaller clubs more likely only tried to keep themselves alive – from this side of the game, it was ironic to see Austria ranked higher than France, Holland, Romania, even Sweden. But results spoke differently even when Austrian clubs were not winning any international trophies, very rarely, if at all, were reaching European finals. The reality now was that: the top league had 12 teams, but only 8 played to the end. After the regular season the lowest 4 went to promotion/relegation stage, joined by the top 4 in the regular season of Second Division. Nothing to be done about it… even small league was not competitive enough and second level was even worse… Names constantly confirmed exactly the convulsive struggles for mere existence: not only Austrian clubs were written under the name of the sponsor, but sponsors were reluctant to stay – Wacker (Innsbruck) was the name in 1985-86, but Swarovski – Tirol in 1986-87. First Vienna – Emco played in 1986-87, but became First Vienna – Rank Xerox for the next season. In 1984-85 they were First Vienna – Portas… VOEST (Linz) finished 1986-87 and became Salesianar Miettex VOEST. Practically only Rapid (Vienna) managed to keep its club name – even their rivals Austria were Austria-Memphis since 1977 (and Austria-WAC between 1973 and 1977). The old Viennese clubs Admira and Wacker were hard to remember now – they amalgamated into Admira-Wacker and did not even represent Vienna anymore, but the suburb Maria Enzersdorf. This relocation was not forever either… Troubles and more troubles, that was Austrian football for very long time already – may be starting in 1966-67, when the first sponsor name was incorporated into club’s name (ESV Admira – NO Energie). This is practical confusion for anybody trying to follow Austrian football, for different sources name teams differently at the same time – some list just club names, some just sponsor names, some mix… club names, full legal names, sponsor names, just city names… a nightmare, generally boiling down to permanent crisis and not at all suggesting high-ranking championship.
This moment of the match between LASK (striped jerseys) and First Vienna perhaps tells best the troubles of Austrian football: the absurd usage of every possible part of the kit for adds.
On the pitch Rapid and Austria dominated and battled between themselves. Behind them the primary aim was to make the top 8 in the fall part of the season so not to worry about possible relegation and failing that – to try to overcome the best 4 teams from Second Division in the spring and remain in the top league. That was all… SK Austria (Klagenfurt) was absolute outsider in the fall part of the season, played as standard championship: in 22 games they won only once. Grazer AK took 11th place, SC Eisenstadt was 10th and First Vienna FC – 9th. They went to promotion/relegation spring season againt the top 4 from the fall season of Second Division: VfB Modling, SK Vorwaerts (Steyr), SV Austria (Salzburg), and DSV Alpine (Leoben).
Now, who else played in the Second Division before the final phase? Who cares…
Teams like UVB Vocklamarkt.
Even the best of the Second Division were no match to the worst of the top league: after 14 games only VfB Modling – or VfB Union (Modling) was OK.
They won the promotion/relegation phase and were promoted.
Second was First Vienna FC – or First Vienna Football Club-Emco, 3rd – Grazer AK – or GAK-Ring-Shuh (Graz), 4th – SK Austria (Klagenfurt). Those three preserved First Division places for the next season.
SC Eisenstadt (Eisenstadt) was the only relegated team from top flight.
In the spring the top 8 continued between themselves the final part of the championship, playing twice against each other, but the fall and spring records were combined for the final table. Now the leaders really stepped in: the third best team in the fall quickly fell way behind and Austria and Rapid pushed as much as they could, which benefited Rapid – they were 2nd in the fall, 3 points behind Austria, but managed to overcome the difference and the season had dramatic finish.
SK VOEST – or SK Salesianer Miettex VOEST (Linz) – more or less ended the championship in the fall, when they were 5th. With guaranteed stay in the league, they seemingly did not care much anymore – 8th in the final table with 29 points (22 of them earned in the fall).
Sturm – or SK Raika-Sturm (Graz) – ended 7th with 30 points.
Wiener Sport Club (Vienna) – 6th with 32 points.
FC Admira-Wacker (Maria Enzersdorf) – 5th with 33 points.
LASK (Linz) – 4th with 40 points. They pushed hard in the spring, adding 18 points, but were really not a match for the best three teams.
FC Swarovski-Tirol (Innsbruck) was the third strongest Austrian team at the moment, but inferior to the two leading clubs: 3rd with 45 points.
Rapid and Austria made the championship exciting – the old rivals finished with equal points and goal-difference decided the champion.
Austria – or FK Austria-Memphis (Vienna) won the fall part of the season, leading by 3 points, but in the spring their enemies were stronger and both teams ended with 52 points. Austria had 86-40 goal-difference and +46 was not enough… 2nd at the end.
To row from left: Gerald Glatzmayer, Josef Degeorgi, Robert Frind, Ewald Turner, Anton Pfeffer, Tino Jessenitschnig, Ferry Janotka – assistant coach.
Middle row: Georg Schreitl – masseur, Thomas Parits – coach, Erich Obermayer, Ernst Baumeister, Herbert Prohaska, Toni Polster, Tibor Nyilasi, Hans-Peter Fruhwirth, Ahmed Barakat – masseur, Hans Holdhaus.
Sitting: Alfred Drabits, Johann Dihanich, Ossi Steiger, Vladimir Borovicka, Franz Wohlfahrt, Harald Fischer, Ernst Mader, Gerd Steinkogler, Andreas Ogris.
Well.. here was another fair sample of the troubles: of course, Austria had a good number of national team players and some of the new talent was theirs as well – particularly Toni Polster, who was the top scorer of the season with 39 goals, but the squad was not as well rounded as it was in the 1970s. It was certain that Polster will go abroad. Prohaska and Hungarian star Nyilasi were already 32 years old. The new goalkeeper – Vladimir Borovicka, 33 years old – has been a champion of Czechoslovakia with his former club Bohemians (Prague), but played only a few games for the national team: certainly not a big star. Taker away the movers and shakers – Prohaska, Nyilasi, and Polster – and there was not much left… Ogris, Degeorgi, Dihanich, Drabits… that was it.
SK Rapid (Vienna) was lucky winner: 22 wins, 8 ties, 6 lost games, 94-43 goal-difference, 52 points, like Austria. They had particularly strong spring, but their scoring really won the title. 94 goals – impressive on its own number, but that made a record of +51, beating Austria by 5 goals. Which was quite amazing, because Toni Polster scored fantastic 39 goals for Austria and Rapid did not have a man among the top three scorers in the championship. May be lucky at the end, but Rapid had arguably the best coach in Austria at this time – the Yugoslav Otto Baric – and strong Yugoslav connection as a whole: their 3 foreign players were Yugoslavs as well: strikers Zlatko Kranjcar (31 years old) and Sulejman Halilovic (32), and midfielder Petar Brucic (34). There were also one or two more with Yugoslav (Croatian, more precisely) roots in the team – a good amalgam of coach and players having the same football philosophy. Yet, Rapid was quite similar to Austria – with dangerously aging stars and newer talent slightly less impressive.