Not all Bayer 04 fans are likely aware that Peter played for the club for eight years. He is probably better known for his many years as assistant coach. That started in 1989 when he is brought to Leverkusen by his former teammate and then head coach Jürgen Gelsdorf. In that role over the next eight years up to 1997, he wins the DFB Cup in 1993 and he saves our club from relegation as head coach for the last five matches in the 1995/96 campaign.
After that season, Christoph Daum is appointed head coach at Leverkusen and he brings Roland Koch with him as his assistant. Peter Hermann takes a back seat but he is not satisfied in his role as second assistant coach. In 1997 he became head coach of the Bayer 04 Reserves. Four years later, Peter again takes charge of the first team. Together with Klaus Toppmöller, he leads the Werkself through probably the most successful season to date in 2001/02 when the club finished runners-up three times. He also worked well with Klaus Augenthaler and Michael Skibbe up to 2008. When Bruno Labbadia brought his assistant coach Eddy Sözer with him to the Rhineland, Peter decided to change clubs.
He was assistant coach at FC Nürnberg for a year but returned to Leverkusen in 2009/10. He started his very successful partnership over four years with Jupp Heynckes. The duo take Bayer 04 to the runners-up spot in 2010/11 and back into the Champions League for the first time in seven years. Heynckes accepts an approach from Bayern Munich and Peter Hermann joins him in the Bavarian capital. The duo win the treble in 2012/13 with FC Bayern becoming champions of Germany, DFB Cup winners and Champions League winners.
Last season, Peter Hermann again took charge of the Werkself together with Hannes Wolf for the last eight games of the season and succeeded in leading the club into the Europa League. Today he is assistant coach of the Germany U20 team and sporting adviser to his former club Alemannia Aachen. Dear Peter, I've always liked working with you and I wish you all the best on your 70th birthday.
Bernd Schneider, born in Jena on 17 November 1973, spent his early years in the German Democratic Republic. He took his first steps in football at the two Jena clubs BSG Aufbau and FC Carl Zeiss, the biggest club in his hometown. He played in the second division for six years in the 90s. Bernd Schneider stood out as an accomplished dribbler with his experience from street football always evident. His nickname Schnix comes from the Thuringian dialect: ‘Schnixeln’ is a synonym for dribbling, being able to control the ball. After Jena were relegated in 1998, Schnix went in the opposite direction. Newly promoted Eintracht Frankfurt brought into the Bundesliga. He spent a year there.
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18 June 1950 saw a friendly match for FC Köln, formed from the merger of two clubs in February 1948, against the Werkself at the Stadion Am Stadtpark. The two teams had already faced each other in May 1949 as winners of the Rhine district leagues in the final for promotion to the Oberliga West. The new club from Cologne came out on top in the two games and were promoted.
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In a messed-up season in 1984/85 everybody is happy that the battle against relegation is over before the final matchday. The visitors are UEFA Cup contenders SV Waldhof Mannheim in front of a sparse 6,000 spectators at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium. The Waldhof lads under their coach Klaus Schlappner are the surprise packet of the season. In their second campaign in the Bundesliga, the team from Mannheim are fifth on 35 points (with two points for a win back then) ahead of the game in Leverkusen and in a UEFA Cup qualifying spot. Two points behind them are Bayer 05 Uerdingen and Hamburg SV.
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Tranquillo Barnetta was born in St. Gallen in Switzerland on 22 May 1985. Quillo, as he was called in the football world, has Italian roots. His great-grandfather emigrated from Italy to the east of Switzerland. Quillo was interested in football early on and he played for the St. Gallen club FC Rotmonten from the age of six. He joined his favourite club FC St. Gallen at the age of 11. There he became a youth international. He won the European Championships with his teammates in the Switzerland U17 team in 2002. The youngsters from Switzerland beat France 4-2 on penalties in the final to become U17 European champions.
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Since the establishment of the Bundesliga on 28 July 1962 for the 1963/64 season, there have been five Regional Leagues: North, Berlin, West, South-west and South. The champions of those five leagues qualified directly for promotion play-offs that were played in two groups of four teams. That included the two second-placed teams in the West and South-west Regional Leagues. The two runners-up from the North and the South played a qualifier for the eighth place in the promotion games.
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