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.