St. Nicholas Day 1996, a Friday: Bayer 04 are the league leaders when they travel to the previously unbeaten at home newcomers and fifth-placed VfL Bochum. A week after the terrific home win in the derby, the Werkself are solid in defence and put VfL, coached by the future Bayer 04 boss Klaus Toppmöller, under heavy pressure with their pressing. After a deserved opener from Ulf Kirsten on 18 minutes, Bochum are awarded a disputed penalty that Thomas Stickroth converted to equalise. The game threatens to turn round with Bochum having two really good goalscoring opportunities before half-time.
Bayer 04 regain the upper hand after the restart, retake the lead and have the game under control after a red card is shown to the Bochum player Kracht. With 89 minutes played, a wonderful strike from a free-kick by Dariusz Wosz levels the scores at 2-2 and stops Bayer 04 being top of the table at the end of the first half of the season. The Werkself drop two points that, as we know today, will be sorely missed at the end of the campaign.
HERE are TV highlights of the clash in Bochum.
Klaus Toppmöller is the Bayer 04 coach five years later and he has taken his team to the top of the table. On 8 December, four days after a brilliant 3-0 home win against Deportivo La Coruna in the Champions League, FC Nürnberg under coach Klaus Augenthaler visit the Ulrich Haberland Stadium.
As so often in that season, the Werkself had to go behind, and even twice this time, before waking up. The match ended in a hard-fought 4-2 home win with top spot maintained. Despite two away defeats in Berlin and Wolfsburg, Bayer 04 are top of the league at the halfway stage and then at Christmas because Borussia Dortmund can only manage to draw twice. Here too: Today we know what a point in these two games would have brought.
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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