1980/81 season: One of the most combative Bundesliga players of all time was the 1974 World Champion, Jupp Kapellmann. Outstanding in his play, however, he annoyed his colleagues on and off the green lawn. Especially bizarre: His constant companion was a stuffed bear – until one day it became too colorful for his fellow players!
When Germany became world champions in 1974, Jupp Kapellmann was in the winning team’s squad. Now, six years later, his Bundesliga career ended in the 1980/81 season at TSV 1860 Munich. And here, too, one of the most combative players in league history stayed true to his line. As captain, the young medical student always addressed problems within the team – but the question was: could his teammates still understand him? Because Kapellmann said sentences like this: “The concentration depends on the celebral blood flow, and if I’m not in good shape, it also decreases!”
Or also very nice: “Some of us lack peripheral vision. If I see that someone is going steeply, I have to let go of my original task and act as part of the team.” Oh well. Some Bundesliga players will probably have run their hands through their hair while listening to these sentences.
When Kapellmann moved from Cologne to Munich in 1973, it was the most expensive player transfer in the Bundesliga at 800,000 marks. But the anticipation of his new teammates was limited. In the last game before the transfer, Kapellmann got a real kick out of it. His future coach, Udo Lattek, was a bit surprised: “It’s true, my players went hard, especially against Jupp.” Kapellmann himself, however, remained calm: “I’m not coming to Munich to fraternize with the other players, but to be successful together with them.”
The problem with his new teammates came from last year’s season. On April 12, 1972, Kapellmann Wolfgang Sühnholz ended the career of the Bayern striker with a very hard attack in Cologne in the second leg of the DFB Cup, which is also known as the “Battle of Cologne” because of his rough style of play. The other players had not forgiven Kapellmann. Arriving in Munich, Kapellmann first got into a fight with his teammates Wunder and Torstensson.
But the prospective doctor also left behind scorched earth in Cologne. Kapellmann called his former teammate Simmet a “henpecked henpecked” and advised that he should be enlightened about the “function of the cerebellum”. The FC players reacted so angrily that they asked the board to ban Kapellmann in writing from the “Zum Geißbock” clubhouse.
The Munich player was not well received by other Bundesliga professionals either. Franz Gerber would have loved to have become a doctor, but nothing came of it. Years later, however, one idea brought tears to his eyes: “Imagine: Me and Kapellmann, we archenemies at an operating table. There was no way the patient would survive that!”
But Kapellmann kept looking for arguments himself. When he played for city rivals 1860 Munich from 1979, he said about Paul Breitner: “What should I do with a man whose wife one day after the local derby, where I was captain shook hands with the opposing team, says: “My husband has already shaken hands with many idiots, including another one yesterday? For me personally, there is only one possible point of contact with Paul Breitner in the future: me as a doctor and he as an emergency!”
Kapellmann also brought his faithful companion, the stuffed bear “Mister Pitt”, to the Bavarians. The professional liked to speak to him in French in the middle of the dressing room in front of his teammates. This annoyed them so much that one day they put the stuffed bear under the wheels of the team bus – but Kapellmann found “Mister Pitt” just in time before the vehicle started rolling. Kappelmann’s dog Noel finally shredded the cuddly toy out of jealousy and finally freed the soccer professional from the “post-pubescent appearance” (O-Ton: Kappellmann).
At the top of the table, Hamburg came very close to winning their second German championship in three years. On Matchday 25 they were already 2-0 up against Bayern. Felix Magath and Horst Hrubesch had scored the goals for the top of the table against the second-placed defending champions from Munich. But from the 66th minute, the game first tipped over and then the entire season. Bayern ended HSV’s title dreams with goals from Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in the 67th minute and Paul Breitner in the 89th minute.
If Hamburg had won, they would have had a five-point lead over Bayern. Now you had to watch how the champions of the previous season mercilessly exploited Hamburg’s weakness and took the lead in the table on the 28th matchday. In the end, Bayern won the title with ease. With an outstanding 53 points, they were four points ahead of HSV and even seven ahead of VfB Stuttgart.
One scene heated fans’ tempers this season. In the game between Bayer Leverkusen and Eintracht Frankfurt, Bayer’s Jürgen Gelsdorf became the big bogeyman. With “absolute intention” (Eintracht trainer Lothar Buchmann), the Leverkusen player seriously injured Frankfurt’s Cha. The Koreans had already armored themselves like a “medieval knight”: bandages and bandages around the ankles, strong protectors on the front of the shins and special protection specially made for him on the back of the calves and Achilles tendons. Gelsdorf played the innocent after the game: “I don’t want to deny that I moved Cha. But it wasn’t intentional and I don’t understand how he could hurt himself like that.”
Frankfurt’s Nickel, on the other hand, raised the matter to a higher level: “What’s wrong with football that guys like Gelsdorf are being raised?” A week later in the DFB Cup at SV Bramfeld, the “Bayer-Treter” was greeted with “murderer” calls. But there was another way. A 20-year-old supporter hugged Gelsdorf, kissed him on the forehead and spoke age-old words: “You have to forget, Jürgen!” However, the league was only able to do this gradually.
