Bayer 04 Leverkusen were relegated from the Regional League to the Middle Rhine Association League in 1973 and thereby no longer amongst the professional teams. That relegation was doubly annoying because no team was promoted to the Regional League West in 1973/74. The DFB decided to turn the five Regional Leagues into the Bundesliga and two Bundesliga 2s North and South and that meant Bayer 04 only had the chance to get promoted in the 1974/75 season.
The Middle Rhine championship in 1973/74 was out of reach for the Werkself but they do play in the finals of the German Amateur Championship going out to Victoria Hamburg in the second round.
A new coach takes over the helm for the 1974/75 season. Manfred Rummel, former striker at Black and White Essen and a German Cup winner with them in 1959, is now in charge of the team with the cross on their chests. And a young striker joins the Werkself from Frechen 20: Matthias Brücken. As there were no major departures, Bayer 04 were favourites to take top spot in the Middle Rhine Association League with the associated opportunity to gain promotion to Bundesliga 2 North.
That happened in 1975. That paved the way to promotion to the Bundesliga four years later. In the following months we will follow this team on the way back into professional football and discover that it was not as easy as it appeared at the start of the 1974/75 season.
Legends like Gerd Kentschke, Hubert Makel and Matthias Brücken are familiar to many Bayer 04 fans. But we also had players like Manfred Vetter, Willi Rehbach, Peter Surbach and Dieter Axemacher who also made their contribution to taking Bayer 04 Leverkusen back to where the club belonged: in professional football.
On 25 August 1974, the team under coach Manfred Rummel faced SV Bergfried in the first round of the Middle Rhine Pokal. The Black and Reds looked listless in pouring rain and not only avoided challenges but also huge puddles of water. Gerd Kentschke was the outstanding player on the day scoring twice and he was also involved in the remaining three goals netted by Klaus Röhrig, Matthias Brücken and Dieter Axemacher. Here is the Werkself line-up:
Hubert Makel – Hans-Werner Marx, Peter Litzinger, Willi Rehbach, Manfred Vetter, Wolfgang Fabian, Matthias Brücken, Gerd Kentschke, Manfred Schumann, Dieter Axemacher, Klaus Röhrig. Peter Surbach comes on for Dieter Axemacher in the second half.
The first league matchday took place a week later with Bayer 04 away to newly promoted Godesberger FV. But that match was in September.
Christoph Daum was born on 24 October 1953 in Zwickau. As a child, he moved to West Germany with his mother and grew up in Duisburg. He developed a great enthusiasm for football at an early age, even though it soon became clear that his future lay less on the pitch than on the sidelines. Even at a young age, his passion for analysing, explaining and improving things became apparent.
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When the Bayer 04 players celebrated Christmas in 1960, they spent the winter in second place in the Oberliga West 2 on 20 points - but already five points behind leaders Schwarz-Weiß Essen. However, coach Erich Garske's team are struggling to get back on track in the new year. A goalless draw against Bonner FV at home at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium was followed by a 2-1 away defeat in Erkenschwick. The following home game also yielded just one point. As a result, the team's promotion ambitions dwindled to a minimum, as the gap to the coveted spot has now grown to a challenging ten points.
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In this video you can see impressive and important goals in Bayer 04 history from the month of February. It's not always about the beauty of the goals, but also a reminder of special games and players.
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It is 11 February 2006 and Schalke 04 and the Werkself kick off at 3.30 p.m. in a match that ends up being historic - at least from a Bayer 04 perspective.
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As league leaders, the Werkself welcomed the relegation-threatened team from Rhenania Würselen. On 4 February 1951, 5,000 spectators line the touchlines despite the Sunday carnival parades. And they see a home team that is superior on the pitch. Without Theo Kirchberg, who was ill, and Emil Becks, who was suspended, the hosts attacked the opposing goal from the start. Battling against a strong wind in the first half, Bayer 04 created chance after chance, but were repeatedly thwarted by the Würselen goalkeeper. With the score at 0-0 at half-time, Karl Heinz Spikofski tried his luck on 55 minutes and hammered the ball into the opposition net from 20 metres out. Rhenania can no longer counterattack. The siege of the Würselen penalty area continued right to the end, but the game ended in a narrow 1-0 win.
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