West Germany. This championship lost quite a lot of its edge – there were more teams in decline and there were those which had short lived prominence, contrary to expectation. More or less, the West German football became one-team show. Nothing like the glorious 1970s. Top players were going to Italy and no big international talent was coming.
Second Division. 20 teams, the last 4 relegated, the top 2 directly promoted and the 3rd going to promotion/relegation play-off against the 16th in the Bundesliga. One outsider this season, 4 teams competing for promotion.
SSV Ulm 1846 was the outsider – last with 22 points, winning only 5 games.
Kickers Offenbach – 19th with 32 points. Unclear why they were placed 19th, since they finished with more points than the 18th.
VfR 1910 Burstadt – 18th with 31 points. Newly promoted, they were relegated immediately.
FC St. Pauli – 17th with 33 points. Like Burstadt, just promoted and going back to third level right away.
FC 08 Homburg – lucky 16th with 34 points. Also just promoted and barely avoiding relegation.
Darmstadt 98 – 15th with 35 points. Another lucky escape.
Hertha BSC – 14th with 35 points. Their misery continued – just lucky to avoid relegation.
MSV Duisburg – 13th with 35 points. Like Hertha, fighting for dear life and grateful for escaping the Regional leagues.
Rot-Weiss Oberhausen – 12th with 35 points. One more team struggling to stay in the league. Perhaps even their fans forgot that Rot-Weiss played top league football once upon a time.
Fortuna Koln – 11th with 36 points. A bit weaker than usual, but second division was truly their environment, so they were not seen as declining.
SG Wattenscheid 09 – 10th with 36 points. Like Fortuna, a bit weaker than usual, but no big deal.
Stuttgarter Kickers – 9th with 37 points. One more typical second division team, performing accordingly: neither too strong, nor too weak.
SC Freiburg – 8th with 38 points.
Blau-Weiss 90 Berlin – the best of the newly promoted teams: 7th with 39 points. However, it did look like a season fueled by enthusiasm and unlikely to be repeated.
SG Union Solingen – 6th with 41 points. Strong season, but hardly suggesting anything more than just occasional good year.
Alemannia Aachen – 5th with 43 points. Their usual – quite remote from promotional ambitions.
That was the bulk of the league, separated clearly from the top 4 teams. They fought for promotion and one team had to be out. Fierce race – 1 point was the whole difference, the unlucky 4th losing on goal-difference.
KSV Hessen Kassel – what a misfortune: 4th with 49 points. Weaker goal-difference worked against them and that was only too bad, for Hessen had modest existence, practically never aiming at promotional spot and quite unlikely to repeat their strong season.
1. FC Saarbrucken – lucky to finish 3rd. 49 points and better goal-difference than Hessen gave them a chance for promotion. They did not miss their chance, beating Arminia (Bielefeld) in the play-off and climbing up for one more try of top flight football. The team was not very promising, so it was going to be a very hard task, but at least this season ended on high note. Perhaps this was the highest achievement of the former Bulgarian star Abadjiev, who was one of their coaches.
Hannover 96 clinched direct promotion, ending with 50 points. Lost first place on goal-difference, but promotion mattered most. Well, up and down, up and down – that was there history. Now it was up. Staying in First Division was another matter.
1.FC Nurnberg – 50 points and better goal-difference made them champions of Second Division. Lucky to win the 4-team battle, but they were not promising squad either. 23 wins, 4 ties, 11 losses, 71-45 goal-difference – not a very impressive record for a champion. Like Hannover 96, they were doomed to meandering between 1st and 2nd divisions. It was great to go up again, but… neither of the three promoted teams looked like it will make some impact in the highest league. est Germany. This championship lost quite a lot of its edge – there were more teams in decline and