A history of tight clashes with St. Pauli

It’s 49 years since Leverkusen and Pauli first met in a competitive fixture. The setting of the Millerntor, which was still called the Wilhelm-Koch-Stadion at the time, was quite befitting the Hamburg drizzle, as only 1,000 spectators came to watch the Matchday 7 encounter in the old Bundesliga 2 North. The Werkself had just come up to the second tier and were focused solely on staying up, while the Kiezkicker had bigger aspirations. The previous year they’d finished in third, just two points outside the Bundesliga play-off positions.

1975: First meeting battling to stay up

Bayer 04 coach Manfred Rummel fielded a number of new signings in Hamburg on 13 September 1975. Goalkeeper Fred Bockholt had arrived from Kickers Offenbach, midfielder Norbert Ziegler from Fortuna Düsseldorf. Defender Walter Posner had just won the Bundesliga and UEFA Cup with Borussia Mönchengladbach. And up front there was obviously Gerd ‘Ömmes’ Kentschke. A man with Bundesliga experience with Karlsruhe, Kaiserslautern and Duisburg, he’d played a key part in promotion to Bundesliga 2 with his goals and assists the previous season. There was the promise of excitement in this new fixture on the sporting calendar, but it turned out to be a pretty dull affair. Substitute Hans-Werner Marx scored the opener for the Werkself just after half-time. St. Pauli then levelled around 20 minutes later through Horst Neumann. And that was it.

When the pair met again in the second half of the season on 13 March 1976, the man in the Leverkusen dugout was Radoslav Momirski. The Serbian had taken over from Rummel with the team battling to stay up – as were Pauli, coming into the game level on points. The crowd of 3,500 at the Ulrich-Haberland-Stadion watched an even and hard-fought game. Bayer 04 twice went behind but twice levelled through Frank-Michael Schonert and Klaus Röhrig. However, the visitors got one more decisive goal to win 3-2. Two more defeats later and Momirski’s time in charge was also over after just six games. Willibert Kremer was the new man and guided the team to 15th in their first year in the second tier. They were safe, as were early promotion hopefully St. Pauli, who finished 14th.

First win in cup

Leverkusen got their first victory over St. Pauli in the 1976/77 DFB Pokal. A sparse crowd of 1,819 witnessed a battling 3-1 win in extra-time in the second round. Dieter Herzog brought Bayer 04 level with 12 minutes to go, before Peter Surbach and Schonert ensured progress in the additional period. Pauli’s legendary striker Franz Gerber was mostly kept quiet that day by the Werkself defence led by Jürgen Gelsdorf. A few months later, Gerber got two of his 105 goals in 165 games for Pauli when he contributed to the Kiezkicker’s 3-0 win in the league as they earned promotion to the Bundesliga for the first time ever.

Since Pauli were immediately relegated again, the next encounters with Leverkusen came in the 1978/79 Bundesliga 2 season. Things were different this time, though. The Werkself were on the up and had won all six games prior to the Matchday 7 encounter. It was a Friday evening, 8 September 1978, when fourth-placed Pauli came to the Ulrich-Haberland-Stadion. The city of Leverkusen was enjoying football at the time, and 12,000 people came to the ground to offer support. That was a record attendance at that stage of the season. They saw a commanding 3-0 win for the Werkself. The reverse fixture in Hamburg ended all square at 1-1, but there was no stopping Bayer 04 that season as they stormed to top spot and the Bundesliga for the first time in their history, just two years after St. Pauli had achieved the same feat.

Michels gone after Millerntor loss

It was then almost 10 years until the sides would meet again. The first Bundesliga encounter between Bayer 04 and St. Pauli ended in a draw on 8 September 1988. The UEFA Cup holders went 2-0 up through Klaus Täuber and Bum-kun Cha before a second-half improvement from the visitors saw them take a point back to Hamburg. A disappointing display in the second half of the season saw a 2-0 loss at the Millerntor that ended with the Werkself slipping to 12th and coach Rinus Michels dismissed. The Dutchman had been unable to match the high expectations demanded of him. Former player Gelsdorf took over for the remaining nine games and guided the team to eighth.

The next high-stakes encounter came at the end of the following 1989/90 season, as Bayer 04 went to Hamburg on Matchday 33. The hosts under Helmut Schulte were battling to stay up, while the Werkself were pushing for UEFA Cup qualification. Pauli were only two points above the relegation zone; Leverkusen were fifth with a four-point advantage over VfB Stuttgart, so not yet assured of European football. The Kiezkicker held their nerve and won 3-0 to confirm their Bundesliga status thanks to goals from Andre Golke, Klaus Ottens and Andre Trulsen. In reality, it wasn’t the most painful result for the Werkself as Stuttgart also lost, meaning UEFA Cup qualification was in the bag.

Pauli again hold up Werkself

St. Pauli remained an awkward opponent for Bayer 04 in the years to follow. A 3-1 Leverkusen win in 1990/91 was followed by three defeats and a draw up to the end of 1996. The 2-1 defeat at the Millerntor in April of that year was particularly hard to take since Leverkusen had been the better team, and it started a run of seven games without a win under Erich Ribbeck that left the side in freefall. He was replaced for the final four fixtures by assistant Peter Hermann, who managed to keep them up by the skin of their teeth thanks to a 1-1 draw with Kaiserslautern on the final day.

Pauli were again a thorn in Bayer 04’s side even after the successful restart under Christoph Daum the following season. The Werkself were unbeaten in 10 games and second in the table going into Matchday 15, but they were caught cold in Hamburg and trailed 2-0 inside 15 minutes. Leverkusen huffed and puffed, the hosts sat back and somehow kept the visitors at bay thanks to the excellent Klaus Thomforde in goal. A Christian Wörns own goal in the 75th minute sealed it for Pauli. A Paulo Sergio strike just before the end was nothing more than a consolation in a 3-1 loss.

Kirsten reaches century

A 3-0 win over already relegated Pauli on Matchday 32 of the 1996/97 season kept Leverkusen in the race for the title alongside Bayern Munich. The game was famous for Ulf Kirsten scoring his 100th Bundesliga goal in just his 200th appearance. Erik Meijer and Hans-Peter Lehnhoff got the other two in an excellent second half. However, a 4-0 loss in Cologne the following week saw Bayer 04 squander their title chances as they finished runners-up for the first time in their history.

Things were much tighter and hard-fought four years later when referee Uwe Kemmling showed 10 yellow cards in a 3-1 win at the BayArena on 15 September 2001. Michael Ballack was given a second after an hour, having opened the scoring earlier. Leverkusen got a second before the 10 men reduced the deficit. Bernd Schneider then restored the two-goal cushion. In the return fixture in Hamburg, the hosts showed in their battle against relegation what passion and desire can do in front of a home crowd against a superior team. Bayer 04 twice went ahead through Kirsten and Ballack, but Pauli twice got an equaliser. The Kiezkicker’s coach at the time was Dietmar Demuth, who spent several years in the Pauli defence but also four in Leverkusen and in fact scored the Werkself’s first-ever goal in the Bundesliga.

It’s now 17 years since Leverkusen’s last defeat to Pauli. That came in the first round of the DFB Pokal in August 2007, with a 1-0 loss at the Millerntor. The Kiezkicker had only just earned promotion back to Bundesliga 2 as they lived up to their reputation as cup giant killers against a side that included Simon Rolfes and Stefan Kießling.

Kießling and Bender score in most recent win

The two Bundesliga meetings in 2010/11 went much better. After a 1-0 win in Hamburg, Jupp Heynckes’ side then struggled more at home against the Boys in Brown. The visitors took a surprise lead before Kießling and Lars Bender turned things around. With five games to go, the Werkself moved to within five points of leaders Borussia Dortmund, while Pauli remained second bottom. The season ended in a fifth runners-up finish for Bayer 04 and relegation for the Kiezkicker.

It would be 13 years until the cult club from Hamburg finally made it back to the top flight. They make their long-awaited return to Leverkusen this Saturday.