The former Berlin Bundesliga team Tennis Borussia visit the Ulrich Haberland Stadium for the first home game of the season on Wednesday 9 August. Around 8,000 spectators enjoy a football first at the ground on Bismarckstraße. Bayer 04 are on fire and end up with a clear 5-2 victory. Coach Willibert Kremer fielded the same starting line-up for the third time in succession. In addition to the two midfielders Klaus Bruckmann, who nets a brace, and Thomas Hörster, substitute Matthias Brücken scores two goals again with the first just one minute after he comes on. And both Bayer teams, our Werkself as well as Uerdingen, are top of Bundesliga 2 North with four points and eight goals for and three against.
Arminia Hannover are helpless three days later. This time it just took a good first half for everything to go right. Brilliant moves coupled with excellent and successful finishing put Bayer 04 top of the table on matchday three, a position not relinquished for the rest of the season. When coach Willibert Kramer draws a critical conclusion at the post-match press conference, he heard something at that moment that he did not like at all: A fan club stage a huge show of support at the exit to the stand and the unmissable chants from the first half of "Bayer will be champions, Bayer will be champions" are not music to his ears. He prefers to put the brakes on euphoria and highlight a rather weaker second half performance.
In the night of Tuesday 15 August, the Ulrich Haberland Stadium receives an unwelcome visit. Supporters of another football club leave behind their own calling card: They break open a gate, then with incredible force one of the two aluminium doors, smash the windows of a new ticket office and smear '1 FCK ' on a wall. Whether the destructive fans came from the Pfalz or a club from the other side of the Rhine is something I leave to each and everyone to decide
In spite of all that, the Bayer team focus on the next away game. The newly promoted side from Kiel are considered to be underdogs but coach Willibert Kremer says he will be satisfied with one point in the build-up to the game. Kiel's coach Kuno Böge says he will put a marker on Matthias Brücken when he comes on. But that does not help much as the substitute only needs seven minutes after his introduction to score the winner at 2-1 with five minutes to play. Norbert Ziegler levelled the opener from the Storks earlier in the game.
On 25 August, a Friday night, VfL Osnabrück are the visitors to the Ulrich Haberland Stadium. Where less than 1,000 supporters were a year earlier, there are now 8,000 enthusiastic fans at the stadium. An almost unchanged team had succeeded in attracting back supporters within a very short space of time. The fans provide passionate support for a Bayer 04 team that give the side from Lower Saxony no chance at any point in the game with the same line-up as in the most recent matches: Bockholt – Posner, Gelsdorf, Klimke, Scheinert, Hörster, Bruckmann, Ziegler, Gniech, Szech, Herzog
After an impressive 3-0 win with two goals from centre forward Peter Szech and a penalty from team captain Dieter Herzog, the Werkself are on their own at the top of the table in Bundesliga 2 North with a maximum ten points. And again coach Willibert Kramer warns: "Enthusiasm yes but no euphoria. We want to keep our feet on the ground." But that feeling of being top of the table is obviously felt by every Bayer 04 fan in August 1978.
Heiko Scholz was born on 7 January 1966 in Görlitz. His first club as a youth player was Dynamo Görlitz. From there, he moved up to the sports school in Dresden and played in the youth teams at SG Dynamo Dresden from 1978-1982. Not considered good enough, Scholle, as he was nicknamed, had to leave the sports school to play his last two youth years at ISG Hagenwerder. Via BSG Chemie Leipzig and 1.FC Lokomotive Leipzig, who Heiko won the DDR Pokal with in 1987 and he also reached the European Cup Winners' Cup final (a 1-0 defeat against Ajax), his path finally led him back to his favourite club, Dynamo Dresden. For one million Deutschmarks, the highest transfer fee ever paid for a player in the former GDR, he moved from Lok Leipzig to the capital of Saxony in 1990.
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Stefan Kießling was born on 25 January 1984 in Lichtenfels, Franconia. Even as a young boy, he spent countless hours on the football pitches of his home town, chasing after the ball and dreaming of playing football. His parents supported him, but they bring him up in a down-to-earth manner - hard work, honesty and modesty are values that characterise him from an early age. His talent became apparent early on, but his ambition was even more striking. Kießling always wants to improve, wants to give more than others.
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On Sunday 26 January 1936, the local derby between relegation-threatened BV Wiesdorf and league leaders SSV ‘Bayer’ Leverkusen took place in the first district league of the Rhein-Wupper district. On the old BV Wiesdorf pitch, where the Leverkusen job centre is today, 1,800 spectators gather to watch the match.
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It is Friday, 31 January 1986, the derby in Cologne is coming up and we're full of confidence after the home win against Hamburg SV a week earlier, having turned a 2-0 deficit at the break into a 3-2 victory. In particular, the Greek amateur player Minas Hantzidis, who came on as a half-time substitute, turned the game around. Two goals from Bum-kun Cha and a penalty from Christian Schreier gave us two important points in the battle for a UEFA Cup place. We are one point behind the North Germans in fifth place in the table, six points ahead of our neighbours from Cologne.
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In this video you can see impressive and important goals in Bayer 04 history from the month of January. It's not always about the beauty of the goals, but also a reminder of special games and players.
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