Bundesliga Promotion In 1975/76: Alfons Sikora “It May Have Been 2. Bundesliga, But It Was BVB” | OneFootball

Alfons Sikora played for Borussia Dortmund in the 1970s in the 2. Bundesliga, which was then divided into two regions, North and South, which BVB were part of between 1972 to 76.

Sikora started his career with 1. FC Mülheim in 1972/73 before moving to Rot-Weiss Essen in the Bundesliga in 1973-74. The following season, he rejoined 1. FC Mülheim for his last season as a professional.

Praised at the time by Germany’s leading football magazine Kicker as “The new Sigi Held”, a reference to the 41-time German international who at that time was Borussia’s leading scorer, Sikora went on to score 22 goals in 117 matches at the professional level.

With 12 goals, he was 1. F.C Mülheim’s top scorer in the second tier in the 1972/73 season, in which the now seventh-tier club (Bezirksliga) achieved an astonishing fourth place in a league which included Bayer Leverkusen, VfL Wolfsburg, Arminia Bielefeld, Hannover 96, and Dortmund.

In a 2020 interview with Ben McFadyean for BVB Fanzine: BVB Buzz, re-published here, Sikora spoke about an era of BVB about which less has been reported — the era the club spent in the second tier.

Sikora, who impressively qualified as an engineer alongside his active football career, draws parallels between BVB then and the recent promotion of Hamburger SV, shares memories of life with the smallest club that ever played in the 2. Bundesliga, gives insights into the challenges the Westfalenstadion-based club then faced, and speaks about playing against legends like Franz Beckenbauer, Wolfgang Overath, and Uwe Seeler.

“When I came to BVB at the age of 20, it was of course a big step from the then Landesliga, to Borussia, even though they were in the 2. Bundesliga.

“I had been a centre-forward at VfB Altena, and we had just secured promotion to the Landesliga when I got the chance to transfer. As a lifelong fan of BVB, the contract was a great opportunity for me. Frankly, I would have played for Borussia for free – to play for BVB and get paid for it – a dream come true.”

As you said, you were moved to get the chance to play for Dortmund as a young striker, but it must have felt like a big task replacing striker Sigi Held and playing in a team with Dieter ‘Hoppy’ Kurrat, Sigi, and Jürgen Schütz, all of them well-known Germany internationals?

“I was deeply honored to play with players like ‘Hoppy’ Kurrat. I have great memories of him as a friend and footballer – ‘Hoppy’ was unique, few people identified with BVB like he did.

“In fact, Jürgen Schütz was a star striker in the Italian Serie A. He had played for AC Torino and AS Roma; at that time, few Germans played abroad.

“Serie A, Italy’s top tier, was in fact the big money league in Europe. Apart from them, however, the BVB team in the 71/72 season mostly consisted of young talents like Ingo Peter, Friedel Mensink, and striker Jürgen Wilhelm, and me.

“We were all starting out. It might have been the 2. Bundesliga, but it was still Borussia Dortmund, and we young players fought hard to gain a foothold in the team – believe me.”

The late Horst Bertram was one of a number of great BVB goalkeepers, including Stefan ‘Stoffel’ Klos, Roman Weidenfeller, and now Greg Kobel – all outstanding goalkeepers. He was one of only 7 players who had been honoured with a testimonial match at the Westfalenstadion. What memories do you have of Bertram?

“Horst joined BVB at the same time as me. He was outstanding, a great talent. Bertram played 200 games for the club and stayed with BVB until 1983.

“He had joined from Kickers Offenbach and made an instant impact. Horst was considered a great talent. At first, he competed with Jürgen Rynio, the first-choice keeper at BVB, but eventually overtook Rynio.

“Horst became the building block of the BVB team that rose to the top of the 2. Bundesliga and got promoted to the 1. Bundesliga in 1976.”

Manfred ‘Manni’ Burgsmüller, who scored 135 goals for BVB, is only behind Adi Preisler, Marco Reus, and Michael Zorc in the all-time top scorer list. You were teammates at Rot-Weiss Essen. What memories do you have of him?

“Manni was an absolute sensation. He was the top scorer in the 2. Bundesliga with Rot-Weiss Oberhausen in 1984/85. I also played against Manni with 1. FC Mülheim when he was at Essen. Manni learned a lot from my teammate and friend at Rot-Weiss Essen, Willi ‘Ente’ Lippens.

“Ente was known for his ‘killer instinct’, and also for being a tremendous fun personality.

“Ente, which means Duck in German, got his nickname because of his way of running, which was like that of a duck.

“Lippens was short at 5.7ft and kept the whole team entertained with his jokes. On the pitch, however, he was deadly and had an excellent strike rate.

“Ente was Manni’s mentor at Essen; they played together there for 10 years. Manni learned all his tricks from ‘Ente’ but his instinct for goals was all his. They were friends and I learnt a lot from them.”

“I look back on my career with great pride but also gratitude. It was an honour to have played in a league with that golden generation in the early 1970s.

“German stars like Sepp Maier, Wolfgang Overath, Franz Beckenbauer, and Gerd Müller. I played in an incredible second tier against teams like VfL Wolfsburg and Arminia Bielefeld, but also smaller teams like 1. F.C. Mülheim, whom I played for at the peak of that club’s history in the 2. Bundesliga-Nord.

“A player I learned a lot from, in terms of determination and commitment, was Holger Osieck. Holger was incredible, a real all-rounder as a player.

“Osieck also went on to become assistant manager of the Germany national team for eleven years alongside Franz Beckenbauer. In 1990 Osieck and Beckenbauer led Germany to the World Cup title at Italia 90. Osieck was always on the sidelines with his characteristic red sweater. It was inspiring to see a former Mülheim colleague at that level.”

You joined Dortmund in the 1972/73 season, BVB had just been relegated to the 2. Bundesliga. The biggest BVB Fanzine, Schwatz-Gelb, in a review of the 2. Bundesliga era, in May 2000, described the relegation as ‘a fall from grace’. It took 4 seasons for the club to get out of the 2 Bundesliga. How was life at BVB then? What was crucial in getting the club up?

“In one word — the Westfalenstadion. You have to realize that the 1974 World Cup was a miracle for German football. German football was in a bad way due to the match fixing scandal in 1971/72.

“The 1974 World Cup [in Germany] put the game back on its feet. As part of the fallout of the scandal, 52 players were penalised or given lengthy bans by the German Football Association (DFB) at the time, including internationals like Manfred Manglitz, Klaus Fischer, Reinhard Libuda, Rolf Rüssmann, and Zoltan Varga.

“Hertha BSC Berlin, Arminia Bielefeld, and Kickers Offenbach were all also forced-relegated to the second tier by the DFB as a punishment for their part in match fixing.

“There was a tremendous loss of faith in the game in Germany at the time. Attendances dropped massively. Imagine in season 71/72 at Borussia Dortmund’s last championship game against Preußen Münster, there were literally just 1500 fans.

“The main challenge was that the club had very little transfer budget to work with. Nine players left, among them all the well-known stars like Siegfried Held, Reinold Wosab, and Willi Neuberger.

“They were replaced by unknown talents like Reinhold Mathis from Sportfreunde Siegen, me, and Friedel Mensink from OSC Bremerhaven.”

“The players BVB signed had talent, but these were hardly ‘Die Fetten Jahre’ (the golden years). Many of the problems arose because Walter Kliemt, the president of Borussia Dortmund, was not the man for the task. He did not have the skills needed.

“Kliemt was a politician when what BVB needed was a businessman to raise money for the club. To me, it felt like the club lacked a clear sense of direction, thank God that era was overcome eventually with promotion back to the 1. Bundesliga in the 1975/76 season.”

The Stadt Dortmund (City council) in 73/4 gave a loan of 300,000 DM ($100,000 at the time), followed by 600,000 DM from future advertising revenues, which helped BVB back from the brink. The Stadt was thanked with one of the first kit sponsorship deals, a symbol of the City on the front, and Dortmund circled over the number on the back, new ideas at the time, which were brought in by Kliemt, so he was, in fact, a success?

“Yes and no. Dortmund is a former industrial city that does not have the economic power of a region like Munich, which is the richest in Germany.

“The strength BVB do have, however, is that the whole region gets behind the club. In the early seventies, big local employers like the steelworks Hoesch and other big companies got behind BVB to get them out of the first big financial crisis in the 70s. That support is still Borussia’s strength.

“No doubt the Stadt Dortmund, the city authorities, helped, but remember at the time, Dortmund had just inaugurated the Westfalenstadion stadium for the World Cup of 1974, the city needed a first-class team to play there.

“The financial support came after two years when BVB were stuck in the 2. Liga and the City of Dortmund’s support was an act of solidarity typical of the region.”

You were hugely successful at 1. FC Mülheim, the club’s top scorer in the 2. Bundesliga-Nord with 11 goals in 1972/73, what was it like playing for the smallest club in second-tier history?

“A great feeling. In Mülheim, we were playing in front of crowds of 10-15,000 spectators. Players like Holger Osieck, Herbert Bals. Herbert Stoffmehl and I were treated like local celebrities.

“The Ruhrstadion atmosphere was electric, especially at local derbies like those against Rot-Weiss Oberhausen or Rot-Weiss Essen. The club’s success was like a magnet to the local people; they came to our games in droves for such a small town — was something very special.

“As the club’s top scorer, the city authorities even recognised me with a personalised number plate which read: MH AK 1949: the city, my initials and my year of birth, something very seldom in the 70s.

“Somehow, everything worked at 1. FCM back then, we just couldn’t stop winning. It was a shame the club got relegated in 1976, and by a whisker, they were only 1 point away from the 16th place that would have kept them up. A special family club.”

“In spite of my career-ending injury, I consider myself very lucky to have been a professional footballer.

“I had a great career; I played for the club I idolised in BVB, I played in the best grounds and against some of the greatest players in German football history – imagine that, I even managed to qualify as an engineer whilst still playing professional football- unthinkable in the game as it is now.”

HSV, who were promoted at the end of 24/25, had been stuck in the 2. Bundesliga since getting relegated in 2017/18, very tough for a club that had won the Champions League and are one of the most successful teams in German history with 6 titles. Are there parallels with the situation of BVB in the 1970s with the recent history of HSV?

“Today, the game is a pure money business. HSV is a club that has been in crisis for far too long. At least since 2012, they had been achieving mid-table at best, and they were often on the brink of relegation in recent seasons until they finally dropped out in 2018.

“As BVB learned in the 1970s, it takes something like relegation to realize the magnitude of the task of reforming the club. Just think about how many coaches Hamburg have had; 18 in the last ten years; eighteen.

“BVB had nine in the second tier until Otto Rehagel got them promoted via a two-legged playoff against the champions of the 2. Bundesliga South 1. FC Nürnberg in 1976.

“HSV are back in the Bundesliga, but it took a complete renewal of the club to get back up. It also did so for Borussia Dortmund then.

“Promotion is something sweet, but it is the culmination of incredibly hard work and good luck. Like much in football and also in life.”