First Division was entirely undramatic – clear outsider and clear leader. The rest was relatively equal and unimpressive. Wacker (Innsbuck) already fading away, paid heavy prize for the departure of Bruno Pezzey. The club plummeted and sunk at the bottom. Curiously, they had still some bite left and won the Cup. They won 1-0 the first leg against Admira Wacker and preserved a 1-1 tie in the second. A Hungarian final… Baroti won over Illovszky, but the Cup did not save the job of the coach – Baroti was let go. Wacker was to play in the second division the next year.
Grazer AK finished 9th , but the club was hardly ever in danger of relegation – they finished 5 points ahead of Wacker. Up the table – nothing interesting, except as a novelty.
Austria (Salzburg) ended 6th – a typical place for them at that time. Nothing like the last 20 years, when Salzburg – under the name of either Austria or Red Bull – is the strongest Austrian club. Three West Germans, Franz Roth included, and a Czechoslovakian defector (Jaroslav Pirnus) were good only for mid-table position.
So was the case of VOEST (Linz) – 5th place.
The champions of few years back were no longer any threat.
Sturm (Graz) was 4th, no better or worse than usual.
Rapid (Vienna) obviously suffered by the absence of Hans Krankl – instead of going up, the club suddenly went down.
Bronze medals nominally were not all that bad, but it was the club expected to run for the title. The title was 16 points away…
Surprisingly Wiener Sport-Club finished second – their glory days were long gone and in the 1970s nothing was expected from them. But they managed to end high – perhaps thanks to the respected coach Erich Hof and the bunch of strong veterans Norbert Hof (b. 1944), August Starek (b. 1945), Alberto Martinez and Jorge Doval. Enough for silver, but not even dreaming of gold – Wiener Sport-Club finished 14 points behind the champions!
And if something was familiar, it was the winners… Austria (Vienna), for a third consecutive season.
Austria playing a friendly with Sturm (Statzendorf, green shirts) before the start of the season. The newcomer Carlos Sintas was introduced to Austrian village life. But even playing next to fields did not bother the boys from Vienna – they had no rival this year. Unlike Rapid and Wacker they had kept their greatest star Prohaska and the absence of the two departed Uruguayans was not negatively felt: Austria had the best squad in Austria. Although they lost 6 matches – the same number Wiener Sport-Club lost – Austria steadily built their advance. They ended with 25 wins from 36 championship games, scored 88 goals. One more well deserved title for the best team of the time.