Season 1972/73: In Stuttgart, an Austrian slowly gets rolling. Johann “Buffy” Ettmayer inspires Bundesliga fans with his great shooting power, his voluptuous body and his quick jokes. A real original! Bayern, on the other hand, are causing boredom in the league for the first time.
“I’m the only Austrian who carries his backpack in front.” Almost the entire football life of the player Johann Ettmayer, whom everyone just calls “Buffy”, was dominated by one topic: his weight. No wonder, because “Buffy” means fat in Czech. A nickname that his former coach Leopold Stasny gave him. For a long time Ettmayer fought against the image of the sluggish professional, but at some point he had enough and verbally went on the offensive: “I’ll always have a big butt, and I just have to live with the reputation that I can’t run and fight. “
At 85 kilograms and just 1.72 meters tall, Ettmayer will forever be one of the strongest Bundesliga players of all time. But that was never a problem for him: “I don’t have a revue body, but I can play football. But I know a lot of players who have a revue body and can’t do it!” After an injury that threw him off track for a long time, Buffy Ettmayer got better and better in the 1972/73 season at VfB Stuttgart. Eleven goals in just 25 Bundesliga games spoke a clear language. There was always minor friction with coach Hermann Eppenhoff, but he relied on Ettmayer. But then a new coach came to VfB: Albert Sing.
Sing was the assistant to national coach Sepp Herberger at the 1954 World Cup. One of his tasks back then: He chose the team quarters on Lake Thun, where the famous “Spirit of Spiez” was born. When Albert Sing came to VfB twenty years later, he prescribed singing therapy for his protégés at the training camp in Origlio in the spring of 1975.
Every evening in Switzerland, songs were belted out until the beams buckled. The pros had to sing songs like “Listen, what’s coming in from outside” together under Sing’s command. German songs and old voyage songs were projected onto the wall with a slide projector. Pranksters also saw in the weird tones a possible form of fighting opponents: singing they should be put to flight.
And the new VfB coach had another surprise in store for him. There were 20 pocket knives in the trunk for the Stuttgart players. Ettmayer: “We had to sharpen and spatula sticks, which means throwing the sticks into the ground as hard as possible. After two days we were able to spatula, but we hadn’t seen a ball!” This was the first time that Sing clashed with his Austrian star player. From there it went in quick succession. Albert Sing: “I will challenge Ettmayer every day, even insult him if it is for the benefit of VfB Stuttgart. It’s different privately. For example, if I were to go out with a player, it would only be Ettmayer.” Ettmayer replied: “But I wouldn’t date him!”
At that time Ettmayer said: “I don’t hit a ball anymore, but I can sing very well and already have a preliminary contract with the Fischerchorn.” In between, the two got along again in public, but it quickly crashed again. Ettmayer said after the game on matchday 27 at Eintracht Braunschweig (6-0 for the home side): “I knew that straight away! Even before the game I bet ten marks that I wouldn’t play through the 90 minutes. That’s it But all theater! Kissing in public and then something like that in the back!”
Sing later reinstated his protégé. And Ettmayer promptly scored a goal. In front of the excited crowd, he immediately ran to his coach and asked: “Does the goal count?” Sing reacted confused: “Why not?” And Ettmayer smiling: “Because I shot it, the fat man!”
The Swabian newspapers wrote about “Buffy, the jumbo jet from Stuttgart”. They didn’t mean it badly, but Ettmayer was fed up: “If I play well, then I’ll lose weight. If I play badly, then I’ll gain weight.” But he never lost his sense of humor when discussing his weight. When Sing once said to him: “There are pictures where you were thinner,” Ettmayer countered humorously: “They were probably made with a cine camera!”
Otherwise, the 1972/73 season saw a development that would shape the Bundesliga for the next fifty years. For the second time after the 1968/69 season, Bayern made it through. They were leaders in the Bundesliga from the first to the last match day and ended the round eleven points ahead of 1. FC Köln. “The Bundesliga is getting boring,” wrote the “Bild” newspaper.
It was more exciting in the relegation battle. The last match day of the 1972/73 season has not been forgotten in Hanover to this day – because the thing was actually over by then. At 96 they had resigned themselves to relegation. The bouquets for the players were in the groundskeeper’s room. The motto was just to get this last encounter in Wuppertal over with properly.
Hannover’s captain Hans Siemensmeyer shortly before the game: “Let’s play, because we have nothing left to lose!” And then a small miracle happened. Unexpectedly, Eintracht Braunschweig lost the game against Fortuna Düsseldorf 2-1 at home, and Hannover won 4-0 at the Wuppertal velodrome. Suddenly the relegated team was no longer called Hanover, but Braunschweig. 96 celebrated – because unexpected events are always the most beautiful anyway. And so the Hanoverians “refueled” with sparkling wine at every rest stop on the way back. That night they finally burned the contracts for the second division, which had already been written, in front of their President Ferdinand Bock’s hotel.
