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1.06.2021Bayer 04

Miscellaneous: SV Bayer 04 – Champions of Germany 1956

It is 30 June 1956. Brilliant sunshine. An almost sold-out Wuppertal Stadium am Zoo with 28,000 spectators and over 5,000 Leverkusen supporters wanting to support their team in the final for the German championship – in field handball. Since 1950, our handball players are a central part of the Middle Rhine Oberliga and were increasingly becoming the top favourites in their region. A year earlier, they made it to the final but lost narrowly 15-12 after extra time against the favourites and record champions SV Polizei Hamburg. The big chance is set to come in the new season.
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They win the Middle Rhine Oberliga unbeaten with just one draw and go on to be champions of Western Germany with four wins and in the matches for the German title they sweep away their opponents SV Polizei Hildesheim (19-8), TSV Zuffenhausen (16-8) and Frisch Auf Göppingen (13-6). They face a surprise team in the final in SG Leutershausen, a village club, who knocked out the previous year's winners SV Polizei Hamburg on the way to the final.

Bayer 04 fans make their way to Wuppertal. There is a special train, which is sold out within hours. Euphoria in Leverkusen. Anybody unable to get a ticket for the train sets off by car or even bicycle. Everybody is hoping our handball players can do better than the women four weeks before who unluckily lost the German championship final 4-2 against Eimsbütteler SV. The good form of the two international players Robert Will and Werner Tiemann promises to bear fruit.

 

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When the game begins after a delay – hundreds are still waiting outside to be let in – the Bayer 04 team, made fit by the athletics coach Bert Sumser, are first out of the blocks and they go into half-time with a 9-5 lead. That is increased to 14-6 and the game ends with a convincing 15-8 win. The team do a lap of honour at the stadium and celebrate being champions of Germany with the fans.

Thousans of fans celebrate their field handball players

The team arrives at the town hall at 21.30 CET in the evening and they are enthusiastically received by 6,000 Leverkusen supporters including the mayor Wilhelm Dopatka who greets the team with the following words: "The whole city is proud of you." The team travels through the streets of Wiesdorf in a bedecked vehicle. There are big celebrations in the mirrored hall the of Schloss Morsbroich. The pubs in Leverkusen are also rocking. They are celebrating their heroes: Goalkeeper Willi Stoffel, who was helping out the football players a few weeks before, albeit as a training keeper, Werner Tiemann, Robert Will, Rolf Särchinger, Manfred Boll, Hans Wübbe, Werner Horchler, Kurt Kösters, August Schiefer, Günther Lingelbach and Volkmar Weber.

The field handball players succeed in reaching the German championship final again in 1959 but end up losing narrowly 10-9 to TuS Lintfort and two years later they reach the semi-finals. For over ten years, our field handball players made their city enthusiastic Sunday after Sunday. And the field handball players of TuS 04 Leverkusen ensure with their promotion to the Middle Rhine Oberliga in 1956 that the stronghold of German handball is in Leverkusen.

"But one thing, one thing will remain the same, Bayer 04 will never go under!"

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