First Division. Nothing new… the usual winner, the usual outsiders, the usual division in three groups inside the league.
BSG Fortschrift (Bischofswerda), newly promoted, finished last with 17 points and went down.
BSG Energie (Cottbus), promoted by default in the previous season (the second team of Dynamo Berlin won then, but they were ineligible for promotion) ended 13th with 18 points and was relegated. Top row from left: Udo Stimpel, Robert Reiß, Holger Fandrich, Dietmar Drabow, Dieter Paulo, Frank Lehmann, Frank Lindemann, Ralf Lempke.
Middle row: Fritz Bohla (Cheftrainer), Michael Wawrok, Frank Vogel, Holger Hünsche, Rainer Schwerdtner, Rolf-Dieter Kahnt, Detlef Irrgang, Jens Melzig, Manfred Duchrow (Co-Trainer), Lothar Lehmann (Betreuer).
Sitting: Andreas Wolf, Ralf Hansch, Andreas Rath, Thomas Hoßmang, Maik Pohland, Jörg Jenter, Hagen Wellschmidt, Henry Brotzmann.
The painful reality for a long, long time – second level was not competitive enough. Newly promoted teams went back to Second Division right away.
BSG Stahl (Riesa) – 12th. Lucky – finished with 18 points too and escaped relegation only because of better goal-difference. In a way, they had good spell – promoted in 1983, so far they evaded going back to the lower level, although their best final place was 11th in 1983-84.
1. FC Union (Berlin) also barely survived – 11th with 19 points. Keeping a place in the top league was difficult to them,which was even a bit strange for there were 3 national team players.
FC Vorwaerts (Frankfurt/Oder) was slipping down as well – 10th with 21 points.
BSG Stahl (Brandenburg) – 9th with 23 points. Promoted in 1984 and so far succeeding to stay in the league rather well.
FC Karl-Marx-Stadt (Karl-Marx-Stadt) – 8th with 24 points. Nothing special as usual. Dirk Schuster made his debut.
FC Rot-Weiss (Erfurt) – 7th with 24 points. The usual…
FC Carl Zeiss (Jena) – relatively weaker, compared to the previous decade, but still way stronger than the smaller clubs behind them. 6th with 28 points. Top row from left: Jürgen Raab – Thomas Ludwig – Heiko Peschke – Jörg Burow – Andreas Bielau – Jens-Uwe Penzel – Mario Röser
Middle row: Robby Zimmermann – Thomas Schmiecher – Perry Bräutigam – Karsten Härtel – Jürgen Köberlein – Andreas Krause
Middle row: Robby Zimmermann – Thomas Schmiecher – Perry Bräutigam – Karsten Härtel – Jürgen Köberlein – Andreas Krause
Front row: Wolfgang Schilling – Mathias Pittelkow – Henry Lesser – Stefan Böger – Gert Brauer
1. FC Magdeburg (Magdeburg) – 5th with 28 points. Like Carl Zeiss, weaker than before, but still much stronger than most of the league.
BSG Wismut (Aue) – 4th with 32 points. A huge improvement from the previous season, when they 11th and in danger of relegation. Interestingly, they never went down since promoted in First Division in 1950-51 (then named Zentra Wismut), although never reaching again the success achieved in the second half of the 1950s, when they played and represented the city of Karl-Marx-Stadt.
1. FC Lokomotive (Leipzig) – 3rd with 34 points. Consistently strong and consistently unable to win a championship, but this very exciting season – arguably, their best ever.
SG Dynamo (Dresden) – 2nd with 36 points. Really, fighting only for second place. Ralf Minge was the big figure, but Ulf Kirsten already was a national team player and on the road of becoming huge star – he was still 22-years old.
BFC Dynamo (Berlin) – champions for 9 years in a row. 19 wins, 4 ties, 3 losses, 59-20 goal-difference, 42 points. Unquestionably dominant and no wonder, since they had the best East German players for a long time. 10 national team players in this squad. Frank Terletzki, their idol for more than a decade, retired, but 21-years old Thomas Doll joined them from Hansa (Rostock). Andreas Thom was already in the team, so the future was guaranteed – just consider their strikers: Rainer Ernst (27 years old), Frank Pastor – the best scorer this championship (30), Thomas Doll (21), and Andreas Thom (22). However, it is difficult to praise a team so heavily and ominously helped by state’s oppressive apparatus. Who could say ‘no’ to the Stassi?