In a time where there were no mobile phones, I had my first cordless phone, my hair was permed, the players wore sexy short shorts and there were positions known as libero as we prepared for the new season. There were two points for a win in the Bundesliga and there was a maximum of two substitutes per game. I can't exactly remember the goalkeeper rules back then but I definitely wasn't allowed to pick up a back pass.
To explain 1988, we have to go back a year to the 1986 – 87 season. In that season Bayer were league leaders for the first time on matchday three and remained so for another two games, we beat the great FC Bayern Munich 3-0 on matchday 12 at their ground, went back to the top of the table and finally ended the first half of the season with an impressive third place just two points behind Bayern and league leaders HSV. Things don't go so well in the second half of the season. We lost more and more ground and dropped to sixth place. That was not good enough to qualify for the UEFA Cup. We were reliant on HSV beating second division Stuttgart Kickers in the cup final. Thankfully they did that on 88 minutes with a free kick from Manni Kaltz and then an own goal for the final scoreline of 3-1. So we again qualified for the UEFA Cup as in the year before
We had three new players for the 1987/88 season: Ralf Falkenmayer, Klaus Täuber and Andrzej Buncol. Knut Reinhardt and Jean-Pierre de Keyser from the second team were awarded professional contracts and Bernd Dreher moved up to the first team squad as an amateur.
In the season preview from Kicker we were predicted to finish in the top five. I quote: "The Bayer players will have to manage that: They finished sixth twice in succession. The fans would definitely not be happy with a hat-trick. Standing still is often the same dropping back. Expectations have definitely risen. Transfer spending in the sum of over three million for the players Täuber, Falkenmayer and Buncol has played its part in that." Three million Deutschmarks, not euros. I admit: The Bundesliga season was poor. Very poor. Somehow we never really get going. But the UEFA Cup matches were all the better for that. And that's what it was all about in the following months. Our first UEFA Cup match was on 15 September 1987 so will look at the two matches against Austria Vienna next month.
The first Bundesliga matches were in August. A 1-0 win in the opener at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium against Waldhof Mannheim was followed by two draws. Then comes the Mönchengladbach week where we lost 2-1 twice at the Bökelberg in the league and in the cup. In the week between the two Gladbach games there was also a 3-1 home defeat against Eintracht Frankfurt and the atmosphere under the Bayer Cross was really bad in August 1987.
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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