Category: 1984

Turkey. Obscure second level, of course, so just a glimpse of the teams playing there:

Vefa-Simtel,

Mersin,

Karsiyaka,

Rizespor. One thing was seemingly common – hard fields, very often pure sand.

The real matter was who was going up and this year the winners, promoted to the top division were:

Malatyaspor,

Eskisehirspor, and

Altay (Izmir). All former members of First Division and Altay and Eskisehirpor hoping to restore faded glory.

This was the finest season of Lech (Poznan) ever, for they not only reached the Cup final, but utterly destroyed Wisla (Krakow) – 4-0.

Wisla ended quite lowly this year – insignificant season and lost Cup final, yet, they were going to represent Poland in the Cup Winners Cup, so at least some international football was coming their way.

Lech finished with a double – their first and only double. Like Widzew (Lodz), Lech etablished itself as leading Polish club in that time – they never won a trophy before 1982, when they won the Cup. In 1984 they had 2 titles and 2 Cups. So far, they came ahead of Widzew, which won their first trophy in 1981, but now Widzew had 2 titles and Lech had 2 titles and 2 Cups.

Dramatic battle for the title, but no drama at the bottom of First Division’s table. Szombierki (Bytom), Polish champions just a few years earlier, was last with 17 points. Cracovia (Krakow) was the other outsider – 15th with 21 points. These two were relegated. LKS (Lodz) was 14th with 25 points – just to point out how weak were the two outsiders. Baltyk (Gdynia) was 13th also with 25 points.

Zaglebie (Sosnowiec) was 12th with 27 points – they usually finished in the lower half of the table, nothing new.

Wisla (Krakow) – 11th with 27 points, a weak season really, but hardly a crisis.

Motor (Lublin) – 10th with 29 points.

GKS Katowice (Katowice) – 9th with 29 points.

Slask (Wroclaw) – 8th with 30 points, Ruch (Chorzow) – 7th, also with 30 points. Slightly weaker than usual, but not really dropping down.

Gornik (Walbrzych) had wonderful season, prehaps their best ever – they finished 6th with 31 points. However, this looked like one-time wonder.

Legia (Warszawa) – 5th with 33 points. Gornik (Zabrze) – 4th with 34 points. Pogon (Szczecin) – 3rd with 38 points. Coming close to the leaders, but not quite strong enough to endure to the end. Similar to Walbrzych’s case – great season, but staying among the best was unlikely.

The top two teams battled to the very end for the title, finished with equal points and goal-difference decided the championship.

Widzew (Lodz), running strong and very difficult to beat got second place with 42 points and +18 goal-difference.

But it was Lech (Poznan) clinching the title – they had goal-difference +26. 19 wins, 4 ties, 7 lost games, 47-21 goal-difference and 42 points. Widzew had the Polish superstar Smolarek and was tough and experienced squad, but perhaps too tough – they lost only 3 games this championship, but tied 12 – more advantageous Lech benefited at the end, although having less famous players than Widzew. It was second consecutive title too, so Lech was doing great.

Poland. The championship was intriguing to its very end, but Second Division produced high drama and surprises too. Among the former top league members, the most famous of them Stal (Mielec), none succeeded to get promoted. The championship of Group 1 was the same as in the top league – 2 teams competed to the end. In Group 2 two teams also dominated the championship, but the race was decided a bit earlier than in Group 1. As for the participants, the Polish Second Division was like most second level leagues.

There were teams like Stal (Mielec), 5th in Group 2, with some fame, but down on their luck presently, but most clubs were little known.

Like Piast (Gliwice), 11th in Group 1, which is regular member of the the Polish top league now, but before 1990 they played only second-level football. However, Piast had a place in Polish football histroy – the previous year they played in the only Cup final featuring Second Division teams and lost to Lechia (Gdansk).

Yet, little known clubs won the two groups of the Second Division.

Lechia (Gdansk) was already having a good run – they won the Polish Cup the previous season and the good spell continued. Lechia, coming up from long obscurity, was entangled in dramatic race for the first place with better known Olimpia (Poznan). No other team was even remotely close to the leaders and the drama lasted to the very end – Lechia won the championship in the last round and got promoted .

If Lechia was a team noticed already and in any case a club with long history, apparently coming back, the winner of Group 2 was different.

Radomiak (Radom) never played top league football and perhaps was best known for the local derby with Bron (Radom). So, this season was great on all fronts – Bron was very weak and ended relegated to Third Division. Radomiak, on the other hand dominated Group 2 and finished first. Like Lechia, Radomiak had only one challenger, a former first division member – Polonia (Bytom). However, Radomiak outpaced its rival earlier and at least a round before the end of the championship they were unreachable champions. This was their best season ever – Second Division champions and going to play top league football for the first time in their history.

 

The Cup. Perhaps the only real football in DDR ever since the Stassi decided to run the show. Dynamo (Berlin) reached the final, yet for another try, but direct elimination was harder to fix than whole championship. Dynamo (Dresden) was the other finalist and won the final 2-1. All goals were scored in the last ten minutes – in fact, Dresden killed Berlin in two minutes. Dorner opened the score in the 81 minute and in the 82nd Hafner made it 2-0. Troppa narrowed the gap in the 85th minute, but there was no time for anything else.

With this winter match the attack of the title really started, but it did not translate into winning the Cup. Thus, Dynamo (Berlin), so supreme and heavily helped by the state remained with single Cup, won in the very distant 1959.

Dynamo (Dresden) won its 6th Cup. Only 1. FC Magdeburg won more cups than them at the moment.

The East German First Division was probably the most predictable, and thus boring, championship in Europe – everything was well known in advance, nothing ever changed. Well, almost nothing – occasionally a club of lower rank had a good season; occasionally a high ranking club had weak season, but the status quo was never disturbed. This season was a competitive race for the title, but still the expected in advance champion won, only it was not overwhelming dominance as in the previous two years. One of the traditional leaders unexpectedly dropped down the table, but not for a second was in danger of relegation. At the bottom – the expected outsiders and the only drama was only who will manage to avoid relegation. That was all.

HFC Chemie (Halle) was last with 11 points. They won only once this season: a 2-1 home victory over BSG Chemie (Leipzig), a fellow outsider.

1. FC Union (Berlin) – 13th with 14 points. The whole drama of the championship was related to the fight for escaping relegation: two teams ended the season with absolutely the same record, including goal-difference, so relegation play-off was staged and Union lost it 1-1 and 1-2 and went down.

BSG Chemie (Leipzig) won the relegation play-off and clinched the safe 12th place, but with them it was sure that if not this year, then the next one will be going back to Second Division. Which was exactly the case of Union (Berlin) as well – both clubs were bouncing between first and second division for years.

BSG Stahl (Riesa), a club of the same ilk as the above mentioned two and newcomer to the top league this season ended 11th with 20 points. Never in danger, but nothing much and expected to go down soon.

This was the only surprise this season – FC Carl Zeiss (Jena) suddenly dropped down – 10th with 20 points. An accident, surely, and whatever were the reasons for the lame performance, it was not going to last.

FC Hansa (Rostock) – 9th with 24 points. Well, nothing new about it – their usual location in the table.

Same with BSG Wismut (Aue) – 8th with 24 points.

FC Rot-Weiss (Erfurt) – 7th with 28 points, same thing as before.

FC Karl-Marx-Stadt (Karl-Marx-Stadt) – 6th with 30 points. Well, that was the group of teams always staying in the lower part of the table, without been in danger of relegation: Karl-Marx-Stadt, Rot-Weiss, Wismut, Hansa. This season the division between them and the the traditional group of favourites was not as sharp as it was most of the time, but still there was a gap.

1. FC Magdebourg – 5th with 32 points. A drop, but only in terms of the dynamics inside the group of leading clubs.

FC Vorwaerts (Frankfurt/Oder) – 4th with 33 points. They restored their leading position after a decade of lowly life, including a visit to second division, but now it was quite clear that they were not going to last, it was not real return to glory and at best they would keep place in the leading group, but no more.

Three teams competed for the title, which did no happened in recent years, but at the end everything settled exactly as it was before.

1. FC Lokomotive (Leipzig) run for the title, but ended without it – 3rd with 37 points.

SG Dynamo (Dresden) finished 2nd with 37 points – also normal: whenever they competed with Lokomotive for the top spot, they finished ahead of Lokomotive, if only on better goal-difference.

BFC Dynamo (Berlin) was not used to heavy challenge in the recent years and they did not dominate the league as they were used to, but still finished ahead of everybody with 2 points difference: 17 wins, 5 ties, 4 losses, 66-36 goal-difference, and 39 points. 7th straight title – by now very likely nobody expected anything else and it could safely predicted that the next year Dynamo will be first again.

DDR. Perhaps the most predictable championship in Europe by now, so the big news for this season could be only that it was the last season of big, divided into 5 groups, Second Division. It was going to be reorganized into 2 groups and reduced by 24 teams in the next year. Little was heard of the East German second level and little important came out of it since 1971, when the strange format was introduced. Generally, only a handful of former top league members won it, only to return back in one or two seasons at the bottom of the upper level. So, in the last season of existence of the large format most clubs were largely concerned with securing a place in the new leagues, having not a thought about promotion. That is, the big problem remained intact: the Second Division contributed next to nothing to the development of East German football. As a rule of thumb, very rarely 2 teams competed for the top spot in any second division group – this season their was competitive race only in Group E – three teams tried to win the championship. BSG Motor (Suhl) eventually prevailed with 31 points, leaving BSG Motor (Nordhausen) 2nd with 30 points and Gluckauf (Sondershausen) 3rd with 29 points.

Motor (Babelsberg) – 2nd in Group B.

Chemie (Premnitz) – 8th in Group B. Well, enough of a glimpse inside the Second Division: clubs with scary industrial names played there. Motor was going to play in the same level the next year, but Premnitz was going down to the third division. They were never to come back to second division football.

BSG Stahl (Henningsdorf) – 9th in Group B. Like Chemie (Premnitz), going down, but unlike Chemie they eventually climbed back.

After the regular season the group winners played a mini-league championship between themselves for the 2 promotional spots. This season distinguished itself of the only season when a group winner either withdrew or was not allowed to play in the promotional tournament. The reasons are unknown, but the winner of Group A,

Vorwaerts (Neubrandenburg) was replaced with second-placed Dynamo (Schwerin). Dynamo was either caught by surprise or was quite weak, for they were outsiders in the ‘league of champions’. Which was supposed to be dominated by BSG Sachsenring (Zwickau), the only former first division member among the candidates for promotion this year and also the most confident Group winner. Alas, it was not to be.

Dynamo (Schwerin) (Group A) finished last with 5 points from 8 games.

BSG Sachsenring (Zwickau) (Group D) was 4th, also with 5 points. Back in the 1970s they were stable first division members and even played in the European tournaments, but now were in big decline. May be it was good Jurgen Croy did not play anymore: arguably the all-time best East German goalkeeper would have been very frustrated if playing second division football.

Vorwaerts (Dessau) (Group C) ended 3rd with 7 points. Not really a candidate for promotion.

BSG Motor (Suhl) (Group E) took the 2nd place with 10 points. Playing cautious game – they tied half of their matches, 4 – they managed to get promoted. It was grand success – they never played top league football before.

BSG Stahl (Brandenburg) were confident winners of the ‘champions league’ just like they were confident winners of Group B. 6 wins, 1 tie, 1 loss, 21-7 goal-difference and 13 points. Standing from left:  Horst Kölsch, Frank Jeske, Rainer Fliegel, Michael Schulz, Christoph Ringk, Winfried Kräuter, Peter Schoknecht, Holger Bahra, Christian Knoop, Co-Trainer Eckhard Düwiger, Siegfried Ziem.

Crouching:  Andreas Lindner, Physiotherapeut Gerd Meißner, Eckart Märzke, Gerhard Kraschina, Hubert Gebhardt, Karsten Heine, Siegfried Malyska, Thomas Arendt, Holger Döbbel.

Just like Motor (Suhl), they never had played top league football, so it was their best season so far. As for the future… hardly anybody expected newcomers to last in the first division, let alone to change the status quo. Stahl was seen only of having better chance for staying longer than a single season among the best than Motor.

Sweden. Well, IFK Goteborg’s time. Nothing really significant otherwise. Clubs like

Degerfors IF and

more illustrious Djurgardens played in the second level, but failed to win. Still, former first division members ended on top:

Trelleborgs FF and

Mjalby AIF. They got promoted to the first division.

The First Division had unusual for Europe format at that time – after standard season the top 8 clubs moved to direct eliminations to determine the champion. Theoretically, the 8th placed team could win the title, although it was unlikely to happen. The last 4 teams ended the season after the first stage – the bottom two were relegated. This year they were Gefle IF, 12th and IF Elfsborg, 11th. Osters IF, 10th and Orgryte IS, 9th were safe.

The top 8 went to the play-offs.

Malmo FF, 3rg in the first stage, lost to IK Brage, 6th, 0-1 and 2-2.

AIK, which came as strong 2nd, losing top spot only by single point in the regular stage, was eliminated by IFK Norrkoping, 5th, on away-goal rule: AIK lost the first leg 0-1, then won the second 2-1, but IFK Norrkoping went ahead.

Kalmar FF, 7th, lost to Hammarby IF, 4th, 3-2 and 0-3.

Halmstads BK, 8th, played brave ¼ final against the winners of the regular season IFK Goteborg, but were unable to create a sensation: 0-0 and 1-2.

In the semi-finals

Hammarby IF was unlucky – they were deadlocked with old rivals IFK Norrkoping 0-0 and 0-0, and the winner was decided by penalty shoot-out – Hammarby missed one and IFK Norrkoping prevailed 5-4.

The season ended for IK Brage at this stage too. All was decided in the first leg, where the visitors were vastly superior and won 5-1. The second leg was mere protocol and at home IFK Goteborg only played the motions and the match ended 2-2.

The final was also decided in the opening leg – IFK Norrkoping was mercilessly destroyed 5-1 in Goteborg. And for good measure IFK Goteborg won the second leg as well – 2-0.

Wonderful season for IFK Goteborg, in which they led from start to finish. The more they played, the stronger they were and at the final left no doubt who was the best Swedish team. No wonder – this IFK Goteborg vintage was at its peak. Standing from left: Thomas Wernerson, Kjell Pettersson, Björn Westerberg, Håkan Sandberg, Ruben Svensson, Stephan Kullberg, Johnny Ekström, Dennis Schiller, Tommy Holmgren, Ove Tobiasson

Sitting: Tord Holmgren, Stig Fredriksson, Glenn Schiller, Mats Gren, Peter Larsson, Roland Nilsson, Steve Gardner, Torbjörn Lundblad, Jerry Carlsson, Peter Andersson.

The Cup final, played in Helsingborg in front of 7800 crowd, opposed Malmo FF to second-division Landskrona BoIS. No doubt who the favourite was, but the the underdog put a good fight. Malmo FF won, but only 1-0.

Landskrona BoIS came close to a miracle, but class prevailed. Too bad.

Malmo FF, although not at its best, was still the most consistent Swedish club. Rather weak championship, but they compensated by winning the Cup, still finishing the year with a trophy.

 

The Cup final opposed Raba ETO to second-division Siofoki Banyasz. No brainer, on the surface – one the strongest leading teams at the moment against a team struggling to get back to top league football. But these years were also the years of the underdog, especially in cup tournaments, and lowly Siofok prevailed 2-1.

Raba Eto finished this season empty-handed. Not bad, but… second best in both championship and Cup.

What a surprise – Siofoki Banysz won the Cup, their 1st trophy ever. Instantly historic squad to be remembered forever at home. The lowest and highest in one season – failing to win promotion, getting penalized for, most likely, attempted match-fixing, but in the time it was their best season ever, for they won a trophy at last. With Cup in hand, who cares for anything else?

First Division’s season was marked by two things: the dominance of Honved and the penalties distributed for what looked like an attempt for fixing games. Small Volan SC (Budapest) was seemingly the culprit, for the two voided games involved them – Volan-Honved and Volan-Diosgyor. No points were given to any team of these matches and further Honved was penalized with 4-point deduction, 2 points were deducted from Volan’s record and 2 points from Diosgyor’s. It did not matter to neither Honved, too far ahead of everybody to be affected, nor Diosgyor, so hopelessly behind everybody. Volan, however, suffered – they were trying to avoid relegation, the very reason they were the likeliest culprit, and after having been stripped from 2 points they ended relegated.

Diosgyor had miserable season, ending last with 13 points. Even without penalties, they were far behind.

NYVSC (Nyiregyhaza) finished 15th with 22 points.

Volan SC failed to survive – maybe because of their scheming, maybe just because they were not very good. Apart from the scandal, one should note their shirts: looks like Volan pioneered shirt-adds in Hungary. If so, not at all surprising, for in the Communist world borrowed from the West ideas were first tried at the fringes. Top row from left: Balogh, Hegedűs, Martos, Hámori, Nyúl, Krómer, Orbán. Middle row: Takács assistant coach, Szeibert, Szabó S., Kovács, Varga, Nacsa, Hatvanger, Földes technical stuff, Kalo assistant coach.

Sitting: Kajdi, Kutasi, Morgós, Kiss coach, Kékesi, Vincze, Forintos.

Pioneers or not; criminals or not, Volan finished 14th and was out of the league for the next season, along with Diosgyor and Nyiregyhaza.

Haladas VSE were perhaps the lucky survivors – 13th with 26 points.

Ferencvaros was the big negative surprise – not only they had miserable season, but sunk so low so to fight for mere survival. They managed to escape relegation, but 12th place with 27 points was very alarming. The squad, as names go, was not all that bad, but it was clear that major rebuilding was needed and fast.

Csepel SC, also with 27 points, but with better goal-difference finished a place above Ferencvaros – 11th.

Pecsi MKS – 10th with 28 points. Standing from left: Vallai, Schultheisz, Kincses, Lutz, Réfi, Bodnár, Mészáros, Nagy Lőrincz, Ránai coach.

Crouching: Lukács, Brezniczky, Torna, Czérna, Ráth, Dárdai, Varga.

SZEOL AK – 9th with 29 points.

MTK-VM – 8th with 29 points. Third row from left: Makay assistant coach, dr. Mohácsi doctor, Brünyi, Lukács, Borsó, Balogh, Kovács, Tóth András, Gáspár, Palicskó Tibor coach, Palovecz assistant coach.

Middle row: Papp, Turner, Sillye, Nagy J., Baranyai gyúró, Sólyom, Valuch, Fülöp.

Front row: Turtóczky, Varga II., Katzenbach, Fodor, Handel, Boda, Bognár.

Zalaegerszeg -7th with 30 points. Third row from left: Gellei Imre coach, Balázs, Soós, Török, Kereki, Gass, Horváth, Péter.

Middle row: Konrád, Fehér, Czigány, Pecsics, Farkas, Molnár.

First row: Csepregi, Galántai, Varga, Takács, Major.

Vasas SC – 6th with 33 points.

Tatabanya – 5th with 35 points.

Ujpesti Dozsa – like their rivals Ferencvaros, not in good shape, but still up in the table. 4th with 35 points. Top row from left: Szebegyinszky, Kardos, Sarlós, Temesvári Miklós coach, Bogdán, Polonyi, Steidl.

Middle row: Szieben, Szűcs, Szabó, Kiss S., Kovács J., Herédi, Kozma, Szendrei.

Sitting: Ambrus, Tóth J., Törőcsik, Fekete, Kisznyér, Horváth, Kovács B.

Videoton – very stable for years already. 3rd with 37 points.

Raba ETO – enjoying great spell, but not really a title contender this year: 2nd with 37 points, ahead of Videoton on better goal-differencce.

Honved (Budapest) – absolutely dominant. Not even nearly close to the legendary team of the 1950s, but at least getting closer to that old years by leading Hungarian football again. 19 wins, 6 ties, 5 losses, 63-24 goal-difference and 40 points. That after 4 points were deducted – and they were still unreachable. Lajos Detari was increasingly becoming the top Hungarian player, perhaps the last great star coming from this country. He was still not universally famous, but his impact on the game was already great and one of the reasons Honved was leading team again.