From November 1958, the Werkself played their home games at the Stadtpark ground as the pitch at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium, completed in 1958, was so damaged in a friendly against MSV Duisburg due to faulty drainage with the result games were moved to an alternative venue. Bayer 04 played the rest of their home games at their old Stadtpark ground.
In spring weather, Bayer 04 took the lead in the first minute with a goal from Horst Stollenwerk. He played alongside two other players from the youth set-up in the shape of Werner Röhrig and Heinz Höher. Heinz Müller was in goal in place of the injured keeper Fredy Mutz. An exciting game developed up to half-time where WSV equalised 20 minutes later and shortly after that took the lead. Heinz Höher levelled at 2-2 before half-time in front of a crowd of 3,500.
Heinz Höher was not the only future Bundesliga coach as the Wuppertal team included a young and ambitious defender called Erich Ribbeck who led the Werkself to the UEFA Cup final win in 1988. Horst Szymaniak was pulling the strings in midfield and he later went on to play in Italy at the start of the 1960s for Catania, Inter Milan and FC Varese in the Italian top-flight.
In the second half, the Wuppertal centre forward Ulrich Kohn put his team ahead again on 69 minutes but the Bayer 04 fans were able to celebrate an equaliser at 3-3 with another goal scored by Horst Stollenwerk.
Minas Hantzidis was born on 4 July 1966 in Kettwig, near Essen, and he grew up in Germany. He developed a passion for football at a young age and, whilst still a youth player, moved from Wuppertaler SV to Bayer 04. The attacking and goal-scoring midfielder then made a name for himself in his first senior season at Bayer 04. In the reserve team, he scored goal after goal in the first half of the season, soon began training with the first team and was brought on as a substitute for the first time by manager Erich Ribbeck on 22 November 1985 in a home match against Bayern Munich.
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Sascha was born on 3 July 1986 in Leverkusen. He is the son of former Bundesliga 2 player Manfred Dum, who mainly scored goals for Union Solingen but also played for FC Saarbrücken, SC Freiburg and Wuppertaler SV. Sascha started playing for the youth teams at HSV Langenfeld at an early age. There, he caught the eye of scouts from Bayer 04 and joined the club at a young age. Following a growth spurt in the U15 team, which forced him to take a nine-month break, the left-footed player finally had the ideal conditions to establish himself in the Bayer 04 youth ranks. Even as an U17 player, he made the leap into the U19 team. Blessed with immense pace, Sascha primarily played in attacking midfield. Not the most technically gifted, but possessing a powerful shot, he found himself training with the first team in the summer of 2005 alongside Gonzalo Castro, while he was still a U19 player.
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The Werkself could not have hoped for a better start to the Bundesliga 2 North season in 1976/77. At the end of a week-long training camp in Quickborn, Schleswig-Holstein, coach Willibert Kremer’s side secured two convincing victories over BSC Brunsbüttel (5–0) and TuS Holstein Quickborn (6–0). Following this flying start, Bayer 04 faced a considerably tougher challenge on 23 July 1976 at 19:30 CEST at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium against Bundesliga side Karlsruher SC.
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On 27 June 2001, new head coach Klaus Toppmöller and his assistant Peter Hermann led the Werkself out of the changing rooms for their first training session. Joining them as they stepped onto the pitch at training ground 1 were the four new signings: Hans Jörg Butt, Yildiray Bastürk (with special permission from VfL Bochum, as Bayer 04 and VfL had not yet agreed on a transfer fee), Zoltan Sebescen and Michael Zepek, the record holder for appearances for the youth national team.
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Hans Sarpei was born on 28 June 1976 in Tema, Ghana, and came to Germany with his parents at the age of three, where he grew up in Cologne. Even before he was born, his mother and father worked in Hamburg in the import-export sector. There they met an older man who introduced them to German culture and supported them. Out of gratitude, Hans was later given his first name, although this man died before he was born. Hans comes from a sporting family; his older brother Edward and his nephews Hans Nunoo Sarpei and Kingsley Sarpei were or are also professional footballers.
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