Uli Hoeneß and Björn Andersson reminisce on the 1975 European Cup final

50 years ago, FC Bayern defended the European Cup for the first time. The final on 28 May 1975 against Leeds United plays only a minor role in the collective memory of the golden 1970s. Yet it was a final that had lasting consequences. The FC Bayern members' magazine ‘51’ looks back with Uli Hoeneß and Björn Andersson.

After a 'disastrous season': Last chance in Paris

The Bavarians transported the trophy to Paris themselves. Packed in a large black suitcase, the silverware was part of the reigning champions' luggage - and became the subject of controversy as soon as they arrived. The French bus driver at the airport refused to take the bulky piece of luggage ("I'm not a lorry!"). The Bavarians had to work hard to convince him to do so. The next problem arose when they arrived at the hotel: the coveted trophy wouldnt fit in the swanky establishment’s safe. Without further ado, the cup ended up in FCB caretaker Sepp Schmid's wardrobe until he finally delivered it to UEFA. In that season, which was "a disaster right from the start" (FCB president Wilhelm Neudecker), something always went awry.

In previous years, the team led by Franz Beckenbauer had won everything: three league titles in a row, the European Cup, and some players had even lifted the World Cup. Now they had run out of steam. At the end of May 1975, with three matchdays left in the Bundesliga season, Bayern travelled to the European Cup final in tenth place in the league. It was evident that if they didn’t win against Leeds United, they wouldn’t be playing European football the following season. Financially, that would hurt. The Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper calculated that the club generated 40 per cent of its income from the European Cup at the time: ‘Bayern Munich have no choice but to seize this last chance.’

Uli Hoeneß: "We did head to Paris with confidence. We intended to defend the title."

Björn Andersson: "I wasn't worried that we might lose. But the tension was greater than usual, you could feel it in everyone. I remember sitting in the massage room with Franz the evening before the game. He talked a lot, which was unusual."

UH: "What our team could do back then was turn up when it counted. That's how we got to the final in Paris. In the Bundesliga, on the other hand, it was often difficult. After the great successes in 1974, the players were a bit exhausted and couldn't really motivate themselves in some games."

BA: "It was a mental thing. It was different for me. I had only arrived in Munich in October 1974 and felt like I was at my peak going into the final."

On 17 May 1974, Bayern defeated Spanish champions Atlético Madrid at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels to secure the European Cup for the first time. You can watch our documentary on the triumph again here:

Wounds and ‘dirty tricks’ from Leeds

Bayern didn’t travel to the stadium until the match. Dettmar Cramer had cancelled the final training session the previous evening. It would have been a three-hour bus journey from the team hotel in Lys-Chantilly, north of Paris, explained the FCB coach. That evening, the Parc des Princes stadium was filled to the brim - 48,374 spectators, including 8,000 Bayern fans, which was the maximum allowed by UEFA. FC Bayern could ‘easily have done with 40,000 tickets for the final’, as the club newspaper put it.

Leeds United had also had a disappointing season in the first division and were in ninth place, the team's worst position since being promoted in 1964. The side coached by Jimmy Armfield, who, like Dettmar Cramer, had taken over as coach that season, had won two English championships (1969, 1974) and the FA Cup (1972) in the previous years. However, the Whites' most successful era to date included a host of trophies they’d narrowly missed out on winning. Since 1964, they had finished the season as runners-up five times, lost three FA Cup finals and another one in the European Cup Winners' Cup. Paris was the last chance for Leeds' ageing golden generation to show everyone what they were capable of again. Captain Billy Bremner proclaimed: "We're going to crush Bayern."

BA: "You could tell during the walk-on how fired up Leeds were for this game. There were a few unpleasant words said."

UH: "The English really had a few dirty tricks up their sleeve. They were very physical."

BA: "But we were prepared for that. Leeds were known as a 'rock-hard' team. Dettmar Cramer also had us practise lots of headers beforehand. The game was a really hard-fought affair. After two minutes I got Bremner's elbow in my face. Even Franz Beckenbauer got lacerations. But I didn't care - until someone flew into my knee with an outstretched leg. After four minutes, the game was over for me."

UH: "It was a really nasty foul by Terry Yorath."

BA: "Although the game had actually been stopped at that moment. The referee had whistled for a free-kick for us and I wanted to retrieve the ball. All I remember afterwards was that I was lying on the ground and Bulle (Bull) Roth and Gerd Müller were pointing at my right leg in horror. It was all twisted. I was carried into the dressing room on a stretcher, where someone put a bandage around my knee and gave me a few painkillers. 15 minutes later, I was sitting on the bench, soon to be joined by Uli Hoeneß, who was also taken off injured just before half-time."

UH: "It wasn't down to a foul in my case. I had already been slide-tackled in the semi-final. That hurt for a moment, but then I carried on playing. The pitch in Paris wasn't particularly good, it was quite sandy and my boot got stuck. There wasn't an Englishman near me. But I knew straight away that it was over."

BA: "I don't think Terry Yorath meant to hurt me so badly. I'm not a vindictive person anyway. As far as I know, he later wrote in his biography that it was a bad foul on his part for which he would go to prison today. I myself have never met him since."

Katze, Bulle and ‘Cobra’ Gerd Müller

"Our chance lies in surviving the first 20 minutes unscathed," said FCB coach Dettmar Cramer before the game. His team - with the exception of Paul Breitner (Real Madrid) and Johnny Hansen (injured), the same as in the final the year before - initially kept things tight at the back. The English side's chances came mainly from long-range efforts and a few headers, most of which were off target. And when they werent, there was always Katze (the cat) Sepp Maier. The FCB keeper made his greatest save in the 65th minute, blocking a Bremner shot from close range.

Just one minute later, however, Maier was beaten. Leeds striker Peter Lorimer volleyed a shot from a poor headed clearance straight into the net. The English celebrated, referee Michel Kitabdjian pointed to the centre circle, but the linesman had his flag raised. Beckenbauer pointed this out to Kitabdjian - and after a brief exchange between the two officials, the ref reversed his decision. Offside! The television replays proved him right: two English players were offside when Lorimer shot, albeit passively, but that didn't matter in 1975. It wasn't the first refereeing decision that's still talked about in Leeds today. In the 27th minute, the Yorkshire side had already complained about a handball by Beckenbauer in the box. In the 38th minute, the Kaiser then wiped out Allan Clarke with a sliding tackle in the six-yard box. Kitabdjian failed to blow his whistle on either occasion.

In the end, Bulle Roth and Gerd Müller turned the game around. Roth made it 1-0 with a low shot from 17 metres out (72') and Müller doubled the lead ten minutes later (82'). It was his only shot on target in the entire match. ‘As quick as a cobra, he turned and slotted it home,’ wrote The Times.

UH: "You have to be honest: we were very lucky. The English tried to score for 90 minutes; we defended with everything we had. Sepp Maier made an outstanding save, Franz Beckenbauer lost quite a few hairs because he went up for every header with everything he had."

BA: "Leeds tried everything they could to get the breakthrough - but we were the ones who scored from our few chances. Football is sometimes unfair."

UH: "You can also look at it this way: Our team was experienced, well-rested, savvy - and did it in the end."

Leeds fans enraged

Ultimately, however, the final had little to do with sport, as the Süddeutsche Zeitung later wrote: 'While the atmosphere on the pitch at the Parc des Princes was certainly a bit heated, the behaviour of the loutish Leeds supporters was so bad that the clash between two football teams turned into a full-blown scandal.' After the opening goal, cans, bottles and seat buckets started flying towards the pitch and individual fans climbed over the fence and tried to run onto it. Eventually, the police arrived. The rioting continued in the streets of Paris after the game, with shop windows being smashed and cars set on fire.

The English fans were furious: they felt cheated out of the title by the referee. And not for the first time. Refereeing decisions had already cost them trophies in the 1970 FA Cup final, the 1971/72 league championship run-in and the 1973 European Cup Winners' Cup final. Referee Kitabdjian was the straw that now broke the camel's back.

BA: "At some point, you could sense the desperation of the English. In the stands too. The fans ripped out the seats and threw them onto the pitch. Even our team bus took a hit later on."

UH: "Our fans were warned to be careful in the city - because the English went crazy after the game. Anyone who spoke German was attacked. It was pretty brutal."

Party, tears, diagnoses

While the English gave free rein to their frustration, Bayern celebrated in the hotel. 'Night turned into day’, reported the Süddeutsche Zeitung: 'FC Bayern's former internationals, whom the club had invited to the final at its own expense along with all its employees and officials, proved to be particularly hardy.' German chancellor Helmut Schmidt sent his congratulations by telegram, president Wilhelm Neudecker said: "Anyone who talks about a miracle that has fallen into FC Bayern's lap - I think they're wrong. It's not about how many chances you have, but how you take them."

The newspapers were full of praise: for Sepp Weiß and Klaus Wunder, who replaced the injured Hoeneß and Andersson and played the game of their lives; and for the ‘three pillars’ (SZ) of success: Sepp Maier, Franz Beckenbauer and Jupp Kapellmann.

BA: "Despite my injury, I was there when we were presented with the trophy in the stadium. I don't even know how I managed it. I got a lot of positive feedback at the banquet later in the hotel. But at some point I broke down and couldn't hold back my tears because I realised that I had suffered a serious injury. Everything in my knee was busted: both cruciate ligaments, medial collateral ligament, meniscus, capsule, everything."

UH: ”I also had a swollen knee. But we just bandaged it up and I had a glass of wine or a beer. Of course it was a dream come true that we'd won. But if you haven't played much yourself, you don't really feel like you're part of it."

BA: "I'm a bit in the dark about what happened after the game. For example, I don't know what happened to my medal. It disappeared after the award ceremony, and to this day it’s still missing."

UH: "The next day we flew back to Munich and celebrated with the fans on Marienplatz. Then I went to hospital. My knee was drained and 80, 90 cubic centimetres of blood came out. I had meniscus damage - the only problem was that the doctors didn't recognise it. Today, they would just do an arthroscopy and have a look inside the knee, but back then that wasn't possible. It was only when I insisted on it after my holiday that I had surgery."

BA: "I went straight from the airport to the hospital and had surgery that evening. When I woke up from the anaesthetic, I was in a cast from my foot to my armpit. That's how I spent three and a half weeks in bed. Only my left leg, arms and head were free. The doctor said that I would probably never play football again. That was a hard blow – and my motivation to make it happen."

Champions to this day

Nine months later, in February 1976, Andersson celebrated his comeback. Uli Hoeneß was back on the pitch at the beginning of December 1975. Neither of them could match the class of earlier days. Andersson left FC Bayern in 1977 and played for a few more years in his native Sweden before his body forced him to retire. Hoeneß ended his playing career in 1979 because of his damaged knee; he was just 27 years old. Dettmar Cramer and his team defended the European Cup once again in 1976. UEFA banned Leeds United from all European competition for four years because of the riots. The punishment was later reduced to two years. The final is firmly anchored in the memory of the Whites as the ‘European Cup Final Robbery’. The fans still defiantly sing: "We are the champions, the champions of Europe." But the trophy went back to Munich.

BA: "Even though I was unlucky with the injury, I'm very happy to have played in that team. We also won a few trophies afterwards."

UH: "The replay in Brussels in 1974 was my most memorable experience as a player. Everything that came after that couldn’t really compete with it. But 1975 was also important. We learnt to withstand the pressure and defend the title. That's why 1975 was a milestone in the development of FC Bayern."

Bayern’s opponents in the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup have been confirmed: