1.01.2025Bayer 04

From the archives: 75 years ago – Club badge above the main entrance

29 January 1950 sees a league match in the second Oberliga West between Bayer 04 and Preußen Krefeld. After a 3-2 reverse away to Rapid Köln a week before, the Werkself want to show that they have learned from the defeat. 6,000 spectators stream to the Bayer pitch, as the old Stadtpark is known locally, on a cold January Sunday. The main attraction of the day is not the match but rather the new main entrance with Sportvereinigung Bayer 04 Leverkusen and the club badge pride of place.

Vereinswappen über dem Haupteingang am Stadtpark

The match proves difficult for the Werkself from the start. The visitors take the lead with their first attack and then Emil Becks is injured and he can only carry on playing with a limp. Hope comes when Paul Wiorek hits the bar in a Bayer 04 attack. But that disappears after 20 minutes with Krefeld scoring a second goal. Fortunate for the Werkself that the two-time goalscorer for the visitors is sent off after 30 minutes for "persistent dissent" - we can translate that as insulting the referee. At least the number of players is equal again. Bayer 04 pull a goal back through Manfred Höher at 2-1 and that is the half-time score.

The second half sees one attack after the next on the Preußen goal but the 6,000 Werkself fans have to wait until minute 78 before the equaliser is scored by Helmut Laaser. Another Krefeld player is sent off five minutes before the end and in the final minutes 20 players pile into the Krefeld penalty area. Helmut Laaser literally scores the winner in the last second with the Bayer 04 fans celebrating.

Alongside the victory and the two points, the new main entrance is the subject of discussion on the day. The next few years people enter the old Stadtpark under the club badge. As a memorial to this wonderful gate, NK12 put up a reproduction on the corner of Walter-Nernst-Straße/Am Stadtpark a few years ago.

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