The championship remained divided: traditional second division and reformed first. Three clubs competed for promotion in the 16-team second league: Lugano, Chiasso, and Nordstern (Zurich). At the bottom Gossau and Bulle more or less were resigned to their fate and took the last two spots, thus relegated. Above them and up to 4th place all were relatively equal – and not strong enough to dream of promotion. At the end Lugano slowed down too and finished 3rd three points behind the best.
FC Chiasso ended 2nd and promoted. Not bad for the faded club – in the first half of the 20th century they did play in the Italian championship, then moved back to Switzerland and enjoyed their best years in the 1950s, when took silver and bronze medals. After that – not only nothing, but rather became insignificant, mostly playing in the second division. Going back to top level was great, but recovery to the old glory was unlikely.
Nordstern clinched first place on better goal-difference – like Chiasso, they earned 45 points. For the small club from Basel promotion was big success. And it was clear that they had to really enjoy this season, for it was highly unlikely they would be able to survive in smaller and stronger league. Nordstern had the top second division scorer – Helmut Degen, but even he was not a great player. Chiasso at least had some foreign strikers – the German Hans Franz and the Dane Allan Michaelsen. A bit better than Nordstern, yet, who can tell what could happened the next year.
First division was the real thing and the reformed format of the championship seemingly improved the Swiss football. How much would be anybody’s guess, for no matter what there is hardly any perfect championship formula. After standard 2-legged first phase, the league was divided in two groups of six clubs each – those at the first 6 places competed for the title, the other six – to escape cursed relegation. Every club carried half of the points earned in the first phase to next – two mini-leagues, playing anew 2-legged championship. In the relegation group on club was practically goner long before the end of the first phase:
Young Fellows (Zurich) finished with 4 points – in 22 games they won once and managed to tie two matches. Starting with 2 points the second phase, they hardly had a chance. In the last 10 matches they won a single match and lost the rest. Young Fellows went down and it was practically the end of the club, which was not successful, but still was able to hire a world star in the 1950s – Tibor Koszis.
Etoile Carouge finished 11th and also were relegated. They paid heavy prize for the weak first phase, when they also finished second to last with measly 13 points. Half of that was too little – the club fought bravely to the end, earning 11 points in the final phase, but still was 2 points short from Xamax. The drama practically ended with that: who will survive – Xamax or Etoile Carouge. Young Boys, Chenois, and St. Gallen more or less only preserved their initial advance to stay out of trouble.
The race for the title was more interesting, naturally. Since there is no perfect championship system, the formula provided for easy living too – whoever finished 6th in the first phase was out of relegation worries, but also not competing for the title. For FC Sion the championship practically finished with the end of the first whole-league phase and the rest was only going through the motions. Sion got a single point in the second phase. Almost on vacation. The other five teams really competed and the end the points carried on from the first phase decided final positions. Three points were the difference between 1st and 5th – a tied, competitive race, which seemed a bit unlikely at the end of the first phase: Grasshoppers and Servette lead by three points after the first 22 matches. Starting with half of the initial points changed things a tiny bit, reducing the difference between the leader and the 5th placed from 6 points to three – thus, hopes were preserved. In the final phase Lausanne-Sports earned the least points – 11 – and finished 4th with 26 points.
Those were strong years for Lausanne-Sports, but their sqaud was just a tiny bit weaker than the other contenders.
The ‘losers’ were FC Zurich – 5th in the qualification phase, and also 5th at the end. They stepped up in the final tournament, earned 12 points, won 5 of the 10 matches, but lost even 4th place – on goal-difference. A sign of weakening of FC Zurich – they had been consistently strong, one of the best Swiss clubs in the 1970s, but their squad was aging. Still Fritz Kunzli was the top scorer of the championship with 21 goals, but this was small consolation, if any at all.
Basel were the best at the final torunament, earning 13 points, and scoring 21 goals in 10 matches, a record they shared with Lausanne-Sports. But they were unable to overcome their relatively weaker first phase, where they finished 4th, 6 points behind the leader. The difference was reduced to 3 points for the final stage, but Basel was able only to move a place higher and grab the bronze medals.
Basel proved they were able to maintain leading position even after their great captain Odermatt was no longer on the field. And a novelty – Basel in rather unusual almost entirely blue kit instead of their traditional red and blue.
Servette finished second, as they finished the first phase. Technically, the weaker among the favourites in the final stage – Servette earned 11 points, the same Lausanne-Sports won, but with worse goal-difference. Either they slowed down, or played just conservatively – Servette tied exactly one half of the 10 final matches. They preserved second place, yet lost the title by a point.
From left: Gilbert Guyot, Karl Engel, Marc Schnyder, Jean-Luc Martin, Lucio Bizzini, Claude ‘Didi’ Andrey, Jean-Christophe Thouvenel, Jean-Yves Valentini, Franz Peterhans, Umberto Barberis, Martin Chivers.
Servette compensated with the Cup, so it was successful season.
Grasshoppers lost the Cup final, but the championship was theirs. Not overwhelmingly – Servette was just a point behind in the first phase. In the second Grasshoppers were steady – they added 12 points to the 17 carried on from the first stage. To a point, they started on equal footing with Servette – both teams had 17 initial points, for Grasshoppers really had 17.5 points, but half points were rounded to the lower number. The rest of the challengers were not far behind, but Grasshoppers maintained steady performance and although not outstanding, still preserved the lead. Champions a point ahead of Servette.
Happy champions at last.
Credit to the German coach Johannsen and his squad. Great season for Grasshoppers – the last title they won in 1971, and it was a difficult one: the club finished second in the championship and won the title after a play-off against Basel. As a whole, quarter of a century of frustration ended – since 1952 Grasshoppers had very little to brag about. So good to top the local rivals FC Zurich too – they were consistently strong in 1970s, adding insult to injury, but no more. 15th title for the oldest club in Zurich, founded in 1886. They had Gunther Netzer the previous year and failed – now he was retired and without a star of such status they won the title. Of course, Grasshoppers had their fair number of Swiss national team players – perhaps Claudio Sulser was the best among them – but for a long time the biggest Swiss stars belonged to other clubs, so the new champions were not particularly impressive as individuals. No even modestly famous foreigners here – the West German Jonny Hey hardly rings a bell. But there was a player which caught international attention – the striker Raimondo Ponte. His transfer to Nottingham Forest was interesting news, but in 1980. So far, the 22-years old striker was only Swiss news – he debuted for the national team in 1978, no doubt because of his excellent season with Grasshoppers. Helmuth Johannsen really did a good job, although he was no and never became famous coach. As for Grasshoppers a new strong era began. A double was possible, but Servette got the upper hand at the Cup final. May be next year?