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.
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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On 3 June 1953, Hans-Josef (‘Sepp’) Kretschmann became the fifth coach in the history of Bayer 04 Leverkusen. Born in Allenstein, East Prussia, on 21 March 1902, the football coach first studied to become a teacher before later switching to football. He took over the Werkself from Franz Strehle, under whom the team twice managed to stay in the 1st Oberliga West. However, Strehle did not extend his contract in Leverkusen after these two very successful years.
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After promotion to Bundesliga North 2 in the summer of 1975, Bayer 04 are fighting relegation just eight months later. The club expects full commitment from everyone in this precarious situation. Promotion coach Manfred Rummel is to give up his main job as a teacher at the Mülheim special school and become a full-time coach at Bayer 04. The coach, who is very popular with the team, does not see himself in a position to fulfil the club's request. Despite a 2-0 home win against SpVgg Erkenschwick, Manfred Rummel is put on gardening leave by "mutual agreement".
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Bayer 04, already been promoted to the 1st Oberliga West, played friendly after friendly in the second half of May 1951. And that continued throughout the following month.
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Jacek Krzynowek was born on 15 May 1976 in Kamiensk, Poland, and grew up as a typical country boy. He spent his childhood less in structured training sessions and more on simple pitches, where he spent hours playing football with older boys. He realised early on that he had exceptional shooting power and enormous stamina. But for a long time, he didn't appreciate just how much talent he had. While others dream of a great career, professional football initially seems like a distant world to him that he only knows from television.
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