
Fifty years ago, Bayern became the first German team to win a hat-trick of Bundesliga titles and the European Cup – all within the space of eight days. Members magazine ‘51’ has taken a look back at four unforgettable games and forgotten moments off the pitch in May 1974. Part 8 recounts the laughable Bundesliga game in Mönchengladbach the day after the European Cup final and how 80,000 people celebrated their team on the streets of Munich.
Saturday, 18 May
In 1973, Paul Breitner jokingly asked himself after winning the Bundesliga if “anybody could even celebrate at this bloody club”. A year later, the team celebrated right through till breakfast. “We played cards and ordered a few dozen fried eggs to our room,” Breitner recalls. At 8am, Sepp Maier, Jupp Kapellmann and Katsche Schwarzenbeck jumped into the hotel swimming pool to freshen up. That morning, the team would travel the 180 kilometres by bus from Brussels to the Bökelberg in Mönchengladbach, with the European Cup and only a few hours' sleep in their bags.
While the team was travelling, Conny Torstensson's wife gave birth to their first child in Sweden. The exhausted ‘Mr European Cup’ only found out a few hours later. In Gladbach, the squad sat on the grass outside the hotel drinking a wheat beer. The Borussia fans walking to the nearby stadium cheered them. “The fact that the opposing fans were celebrating us was something special,” recalls Rainer Zobel. The whole of footballing Germany was united. A good start to the World Cup on home soil that summer.
We just laughed on the bench every time they scored.
Udo Lattek
The team hardly prepared for the game. “We can play carefree, that's worth a lot,” said coach Udo Lattek. “My players intend to prevent Jupp Heynckes from scoring so that Gerd Müller once again finishes as the Bundesliga's top scorer. Perhaps we can achieve a lot more if we pursue this goal.”
Schwan fulfils somersault promise
Bayern held out for half an hour, but then the Foals scored four times in just 15 minutes through Heynckes, Allan Simonsen, Rainer Bonhof and Heynckes again. Lattek held up the European Cup every time a goal went in. “We just laughed on the bench every time they scored,” he later recalled. General manager Robert Schwan had promised the team that if they won the European Cup, he would do a somersault on the pitch. After the triumph, Schwan initially promised each player 10,000 Deutschmark if he did not have to do the somersault. However, 20 minutes before kick-off at the Bökelberg, he leapt into action, but so quickly and inconspicuously that it almost went unnoticed. Franz Beckenbauer was very impressed by the speed of the game: “I can play like this for another 25 years.”
Heynckes went level with Müller in the goalscoring charts with day’s fifth and both ended up with 30 goals. Müller didn’t play at all in the second half and later said: “What difference does it make?”

