The board see themselves vindicated, despite animosity from spectators and newspapers, by holding on to Kirchberg and having gone into the season with a lot of young and very inexperienced players in the squad. At the same time, in the home game against Lüner SV on 7 December 1969 there are still six players in the line-up from the Regional League West championship winning side of 1968 in the shape of Willy Haag, Günther Haarmann, Helmut Röhrig, Karl-Heinz Brücken, Fredi Hennecken and Friedhelm Strzelczyk.
Lüner SV come to the Ulrich Haberland Stadium in sixth place in the table. The team from Westphalia have not lost any of the last eight games and have bags of confidence. The Werkself, with the young keeper Dieter Ferner, who later played in the Bundesliga for FC Saarbrücken and in the USA with Chicago Sting the champions in 1981, take the lead in front of 3,500 spectators on three minutes with a headed goal scored by Hans Dieter Schäde from a cross by Friedhelm Strzelczyk. At the start of the season, the lively right winger was seen as "the one-eyed man, king in the land of the blind", as Strelli, as his teammates called him, only had one healthy eye. The other is a glass eye that he takes out when playing cards to have a "look" into the other players’ hands.
Whoever thought the fast goal would give the Bayer team a real boost was disappointed. The visitors were the better team and had three big chances. Shortly before half-time, centre-forward Karl-Heinz Brücken headed in a fine cross from Hans Dieter Schäde to take a 2-0 lead into the break. At the start of the second half, on 46 minutes, the Lüner sweeper Dieter Zorc, father of the long-standing Dortmund Bundesliga player and manager Michael Zorc, handled the ball in the penalty area. Fredi Hennecken fires the ball from the spot into the roof of the net – 3-0. Bayer 04 now dominate the ball and the opponents. And Lüner SV are downhearted 15 minutes later when Werner Thies converts another cross from Friedhelm Strzelczyk to make it 4-0. A bigger win is missed out on in the last 30 minutes because good chances for Hans Dieter Schäde and Fredi Hennecken go begging.
After that win and a mid-table position of eleventh, the Bayer 04 officials are very confident looking to the future. In the last two matches before Christmas, the Werkself lose 3-1 in Bielefeld but are able to secure their position a week later with a 1-0 home win against SSV Velbert. The spectre of relegation is slowly driven out of the Ulrich Haberland Stadium.
Bayer 04 started the new season on 20 July 1950. To the applause from almost 2,000 spectators, the Werkself stepped onto the pitch at the Am Stadtpark stadium and the season target was clear to the supporters: finally achieve promotion to the Oberliga West. Under the direction of new coach Raymond Schwab, who brought one of his Essen players with him in the shape of Karl-Heinz Spikofski, the team did a couple of laps. Coach Schwab gave a speech in front of all the fans where he clearly imparted his request for calm in the stands and he said he hated nothing more than heckling or laughing when mistakes are made. He hoped the Bayer 04 supporters would follow his advice.
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Horst Knauf was born in Cologne on 16 August 1960. As a teenager he played for PSV Köln before signing for the Bayer 04 Leverkusen U19s as a talented midfielder in 1976. He made the move up from the second team to the Bundesliga squad in 1980. Over the following three years he played 39 Bundesliga games and scored two goals. Above all in the difficult 1981/82 season for the Werkself with the play-off games against Kickers Offenbach, he played a big part in saving Bayer 04 with 21 appearances. But under the new coach Dettmar Cramer he rarely made a start and he decided to move on.
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Holger Aden was born in Hamburg on 25 August 1965. He learned all about playing football and, above all, scoring goals at the two Hamburg clubs Niendorfer TSV and TSV DuWo 08 Hamburg. After progression from the youth teams, he played for other Hamburg clubs. One after the other he appeared for Concordia Hamburg, Altona 93 and SC Norderstedt. The centre-forward regularly found the back of the opposition net. He scored 22 goals for SC Norderstedt in the 1988/89 season.
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Michael Ballack was born in Görlitz in the GDR on 26 September 1976. He displayed his talent for football at a young age. After his family moved to Karl-Marx-Stadt, now called Chemnitz, he started playing for BSG Motor ‘Fritz Heckert’ Karl-Marx-Stadt where he constantly continued to develop his ability on the pitch. From year seven he went to the children and youth sports college and there he received systematic support in sport that led, against the background of his increasing ability, to a move to FC Karl-Marx-Stadt. At the age of 16, he had to take a six-month break due to growing pains, but then there was no stopping Michael after that.
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In this video you can watch impressive and important goals in the history of Bayer 04 in the month of August. It is not always about the beauty of the goals but also about remembering special games and players.
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