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Wuppertal in sixth wanted to make up ground to the top of the table and obviously trip up the Werkself. WSV shone for an hour with fight, pace and ingenuity and deservedly opened the scoring on 56 minutes. The game turned round when Peter Szech scored two goals out of nothing on 64 and 65 minutes putting the ball in the back of the Wuppertal net after two wonderful counter-attacks by Bayer 04. The Werkself now played like league leaders and substitute Matthias Brücken rounded off the scoring with his obligatory substitute goal on 89 minutes. The 3-1 victory gave Leverkusen an eleventh win in succession over two seasons. The Werkself had one every game since Harry Gniech was in the starting line-up. And Matthias Brücken succeeded in scoring a goal every two minutes over that period.
The euphoria around the Bayer Cross demanded special measures. Bayer 04 set up four ticket offices in Leverkusen: Sporthaus Röhrich in Wiesdorf, Reisebüro Herweg in Opladen, the Bayer 04 clubhouse at the stadium and the club offices. And that paid off when 12,000 Bayer 04 fans made their way to Bismarckstraße on 8 September for a Friday night home game against FC St. Pauli.
With another unchanged starting eleven, Bayer 04 pressed at pace and created chance after chance but two goals only came just before half-time. The team captain Dieter Herzog with a penalty and Hans-Jürgen Scheinert with a brilliant header from a corner brought a deserved 2-0 scoreline at half-time. The seventh win of the season was secured when centre-forward Peter Szech made it 3-0 on the hour mark. Speaking at the post-match press conference, the St. Pauli coach Sepp Piontek complained about the over aggressive approach from the Werkself: "This team needs a gun licence!" were his words. Bayer 04 coach Willibert Kremer was very surprised by the statement, and he was already thinking about the next away game against newly promoted Viktoria Köln at the Sportpark Höhenberg, as he reacted to the verbal attack from the Hamburg coach "This game will definitely be tougher than the one against the harmless Hamburgers."
It is Sunday 17 September when the Kremer team travel to the neighbouring city to crush FC Viktoria Köln. Bayer 04 played like a promoted club for 75 minutes and they were praised in the highest terms by the opposition coach Fritz Pott: "I think the Bayer team in this form could scarcely be beaten by any other team." Led by the energetic Norbert Ziegler, the Werkself up their game and take the lead on 38 minutes through home-grown player Harry Gniech. After half-time, three goals come in rapid succession with a brace from Klaus Bruckmann and one from Thomas Hörster. Viktoria Köln score a consolation through former Bayer 04 player Peter Langer but the Werkself seal the win. The Bayer 04 fans are already looking forward to the next home game.
There is the second round of the DFB-Pokal before that. Away to the Oberliga side OSV Hannover, Willibert Kremer changes his line-up for the first time in the season bringing in Willi Korth in defence in place of Peter Klimke. But that does not affect the performance levels. A convincing 3-0 victory is calmly secured with goals from Klaus Bruckmann, Harry Gniech and Dieter Herzog. Through to round three.
Friday night again, 19.30. Party mood at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium. The opponents are DSC Wanne-Eickel. Once again, 12,000 supporters come to cheer on their team. Kremer is forced to change his usual formation as World Cup winner Dieter Herzog has fractured his shoulder and is sidelined for at least four weeks. Super sub Matthias Brücken starts in his place and does what he does best on six minutes: score goals. Cutting in from the left wing he beats his opponent and curls the ball into the top right corner. In a rather tough encounter, due to the Westphalians never giving up marking, Jürgen Gelsdorf doubles the lead before half-time with a penalty. When Thomas Hörster makes it 3-0 on 50 minutes the result is certain. A goal from the opponents on 75 minutes is countered by Matthias Brücken scoring his second on 80. The Werkself are top of the table at the end of September with a maximum 18 points putting them four ahead of second-placed Bayer 05 Uerdingen. That earns a special report from Kicker as it reports:
"Bayer Leverkusen are the sensational team of professional football." And furthermore: "It is exemplary for other clubs how Bayer have been built up organically year by year and continually strengthened. None of the players brought in over the last three years remains in the reserves." Coach Willibert Kremer is seen as the father of this upturn as "he suggests the people he wants to football boss Hermann Büchel and he gets them too. It can be said without any exaggeration that Bayer brought in players over the last three years to the maximum effect."
Bayer 04 fans read that with joy and hope for a golden October.
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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