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1.10.2023Bayer 04

From the archives: 90 years ago – derby at the Stadtpark

It is Sunday, 22 October 1933 and it's derby time in Leverkusen. Spvgg Leverkusen 04, with Bayer only appearing in the club name from 1935, and Jahn Küppersteg faced each other in front of 1,000 spectators at the Am Stadtpark Stadium.
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The 'Bayer team' led 3-0 after 15 minutes. Centre forward Karl Peckhaus and a brace from Heinstmann were the scorers. Jahn Küppersteg recovered well and were able to pull it back to 3-2 thanks to two goals from their inside left Goldmann. The goalkeeper Ernst König did not look good for the first goal conceded and with the second it was the two defenders Fritz Heider and Karl van Frank. Heinstmann then made it 4-2 before half-time.

The second half brought "some strong challenges that are unavoidable in such a local game" (Anzeiger 23.10.1933). The Küppersteg players again pulled a goal back. Goldmann found the back of the Spvgg net for the third time but the Bayer team hit back with a strike from Karl Stachelscheidt for the final score 5-3.

There were two Jewish players in this team in defender Karl van Frank and his brother Richard, the left winger at Spvgg Leverkusen 04. Their father Samuel owned a cinema in Leverkusen. On 26 November 1933, just one month after this game, the van Frank family fled to the Netherlands. The two young men played the rest of the season for the Werkself travelling to games from the Netherlands. Their names finally disappear from the line-ups from the 1934/35 season. After the invasion of the Netherlands by German troops, the family were able to hide with Dutch friends and thereby avoid deportation to concentration camps. After the war, the brothers followed the profession of their father and opened two cinemas in Haarlem (Richard) and Beverwijk (Karl).

Jahn Küppersteg merged with TuS Manfort to form VfL Leverkusen in July 1950 And the club was dissolved in 2017 with the youth section moving over to SC Leverkusen.

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