Austria returned to normal league format, which meant that no team was relegated from First Division after the 1981-82 season and the top 6 teams of the Second Division were promoted to restore classic 16-team league. Naturally, 6 teams went up from Third Division to the Second, to fill the empty spots. Tinkering with the league format was mostly because of financial troubles – most clubs had no enough means to support professional teams. Unfortunately, football was rapidly becoming more expensive sport in a country never crazy about it. The 10-team experiment aimed at making the clubs financially sound, but a small league reduced already smallish attendance: people were not all that happy to see teams playing 4 times against other in a year. So, back to standard league… and enlarging it with teams which were not making it more competitive. It was a vicious circle. And to make things even more difficult, especially for foreign observers, the Austrians permitted sponsors to add their names to the clubs names. This practice was unique in Europe, certainly aiming to lure firms into investing money in football, but confused forever outsiders: club names were written differently in different sources, often the sponsor’s name was given as the official club name and since they changed frequently it was always puzzling whether a new name represents an old or a new club. No certainty, because some clubs were merging or folding altogether on top of everything. The Austrian predicament was preventing the keep of continuously strong teams – for years the best Austrian players were moving abroad and since the country never had a large pool of players, foreigners were hired to replace the exodus of local talent. Not first rate stars, for money were always short for that and the exchange looked quite grim at the early 1980s: to the customary Yugoslavs and West Germans failing for one or another reason to establish themselves at home, East Europeans were bought. They were cheap…but they were also old, for Eastern Europe had age restrictions. It was rather sorry exchange – Austrian stars in their prime were replaced by veterans. In 1982-83 Austrian football had such players as Barry Hulshoff (Holland), Antonin Panenka, Ladislav Kuna, Jaroslav Polak (Czechoslovakia), Anatoly Zinchenko (USSR), Petko Petkov, Tchavdar Tzvetkov (Bulgaria), Istvan Magyar, Laszlo Pusztai (Hungary) – players, whose prime was back in the first half of the 1970s. Ladislav Kuna belonged more to the the 1960s, than to the 1970s. Players almost forgotten by now and rightly so: of course, Panenka was a great memory, but his teammate in the 1976 European champions squad, Jan Pivarnik, was assistant coach of Austria (Vienna) now. So, the situation was unchanged – the two giants from capital, Austria and Rapid dominated and the rest were hopelessly far behind. If anything, clubs were going into decline rather than improving – bigger league masked that for awhile, keeping Wacker (Innsbruck) and Sturm (Graz) in high positions and VOEST (Linz), Grazer AK (Graz), Adimra/Wacker (Vienna) outside relegation zone. None, however, possessed even faint hopes of challenging the dominant two.
As for Second Division, little hope could have been placed in it – now it was entirely made of small clubs.
Clubs like Flavia Solva, which finished 5th. Note the full name and get confused – ‘Raika’ appeared as a name of other clubs as well. Well, this team possibly did well in its own terms this season, but they were not among the possible candidates for promotion.
Four clubs competed for two promotional spots. Bregenz/Dornbirn ended 4th with 37 points – 3 more than Flavia Solva’s. Badener AC was 3rd with 38. Ahead, two teams finished with 40 points each, so goal-difference decided the Second Division winner.
Favoritner AC, a Viennese club, which lost its luster long, long ago, settled for 2nd place – it did not matter much, for they clinched promotion.
Practically unknown Sankt Veit topped the league – this happened to be the only title in the history of the club: champions of Second Division. And promoted up.
Good for winners, but neither club was to improve the top league at all… most likely, the newcomers would struggle just to survive the next season .