When women’s football was still banned, FC Bayern assembled a team via a newspaper advert. It was the start of a success story: in 1976 the club celebrated its first German championship. In honour of the 50th anniversary, the heroes from that time gathered – pioneering women who refused to be deterred from their path and even ventured as far as Azerbaijan.
The fan in the FC Bayern Wiesn shirt briefly hesitates, looks closer, then plucks up the courage to ask: “Aren’t you the women’s team who won the championship in 1976?” Sure enough it is, and the fan immediately asks for a souvenir photo together. The heroes of yesteryear have been invited by the club to the last home match of the season at the FC Bayern Campus to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the first title win. “These women were pioneers,” declares president Herbert Hainer, who honours them on the pitch before kick-off with women’s football director Bianca Rech. “You’re a very important part of our family.”
Long-time FCB general manager Karin Danner rounded up the team, using detective work in some cases. It’s 25 years since they last met up at Säbener Straße. “Suddenly we got an invite in the letterbox,” explains Christl Süß, former team captain. “I was hugely excited – that’s just typical of FC Bayern to organise something like this.” Even in the car park at the FC Bayern Campus, there’s a loud ‘Hallo’ upon the first reunion, like at a school reunion, where the general consensus is: “It’s going to be fun today!”
Beckenbauer: ‘Bring the trophy home!’
They’re a side who made history – and are full of stories. Süß, for example, didn't go it alone in 1970 when FC Bayern placed an ad in the newspaper calling on women to come to Säbener Straße to form a team. Traudl Langer, her twin sister, was also with her. “We were 12 children – six girls, six boys – and we always played football on the yard in front of the house,” explains Traudl. “When FC Bayern assembled a team, we were already married and had children, but of course we wanted to be involved.” From around 80 women, a team was picked out within a few weeks. “We then won everything,” recall the twins. In 1975, Bayern finished runners-up before going one better the following year.
The decisive match against Tennis Borussia Berlin took place on a Sunday, at the roasting-hot Leimbachstadion in Siegen. The women travelled on the men’s team bus, with Franz Beckenbauer personally waving them off at Säbener Straße. “Bring the trophy home!” In extra time, Inge Mayerhofer’s goal to make it 3-2 paved the way for a 4-2 victory – the then centre-forward still remembers it clearly, as everything was rehearsed. “We constantly practised that move in training: our libero switches play, the cross from deep on the right – and I’m in the right place with my head. None of it was accidental.”
Before that, Mayerhofer had been poached from Waldkraiburg because she had a reputation for scoring goals. From a young age, she always played with boys: football, climbing, adventures. In the courtyard there was a metal gate they would kick the ball against, and the louder it clanged, the better. Once, she set herself the challenge of keeping the ball up 500 times. After practising for three weeks, she did it. “We’ll take her,” the Bayern officials said back then after a trial game, but everything had to fall into place. As it happened, she was transferred to Munich during her apprenticeship right around that time; at 9:30 pm, coach Fritz Bank drove her to Munich’s Ostbahnhof, her mum picked up the 19-year-old from the train, and in the morning she headed back to the state capital. A lot of effort, “but when Bayern call, what can you do?” she says with a laugh. “Bayern are Bayern.”
They were a close-knit unit, explains Mayerhofer – on a personal level too. “People always say that FC Bayern is a family – we were a family. Still today, my heart started racing as I travelled here.” She recalls that Sissy Raith particularly turned it on in the heat – “a red-faced whirlwin” – and Christl, with whom she often stayed the night back then, frequently said as the playmaker: “Now I’ll hit another pass for you!” Inge once sat next to Karl-Heinz Rummenigge for an interview, and still remembers the excitement. “What should I wear? You wanted to look presentable on TV, after all. They were great times, it’s never been the same as it was back then at Bayern.”
A sheep for those in need
At 15 years of age, Raith was the youngest in the team at the time. When she was six, she said: I want to become an international – there wasn’t even a German women’s team yet. “That didn’t matter to me. Just as others went to the ballet, I went to the football pitch,” she describes, and silly remarks didn’t bother her. “All the things you had to listen to back then – people should’ve been ashamed. But they could say whatever they wanted to me. I wanted something – and that was to play football!” Of all the ‘76 players, Raith embarked on the most extraordinary journey. She became a coach, with her path leading her to Azerbaijan – and of course she did become an international, making 58 appearances for Germany between 1983 and 1991.
She says she's always had a hard time with the word “pride”, but when looking back at 1976, the term isn't entirely off the mark. At the time, they didn’t really realise that they were making history, that it was the start of something. Instead, they just worked towards the title day and night – “and when we got it, I was happy as a pig in mud”. Her dad was a good footballer, and her mum always said she saw him in her. “I had the stamina for two games and was two-footed – football was my dream.” She wanted to pass on all of that, later working as an assistant to Peter König at FC Bayern Women before coaching the team herself for four years, working for the Bavarian Football Association and coaching a men’s team in the state league. Then in 2010, she got a call from Berti Vogts, then coach of the Azerbaijan national team. She spent three years helping to develop girls and women’s football on the Caspian Sea.
She arrived in the capital, Baku, with two suitcases and travelled all over the country, from the Iranian border in the south (“50 degrees in the shade”) to the Caucasus near Dagestan in the north. Her every wish was granted, and her stories could fill an entire book. “Once, they said we had to slaughter a sheep because it brings good luck – everyone had to step over it,” she recounts. “The meat was then distributed to poor people – in this case, to the hotel staff.” Raith has experienced the development of women’s football in many ways since 1976, and today she’s thrilled by everything happening at FC Bayern. She was at the Allianz Arena for the Champions League semi-final against FC Barcelona (“among 31,000 spectators – unbelievable”), and the acquisition of the Unterhaching Sportspark for the women’s team “is absolutely the right direction. It’s great to see everything that’s happening.”
Photos with Giulia Gwinn
On today’s visit to the Campus, she again witnessed live how everything has progressed at FC Bayern. After the match against Frankfurt, Christl and Traudl meet Giulia Gwinn and Katharina Naschenweng on the pitch, and pose for photos together with their trophy from 1976 and the current Meisterschale. Coach José Barcala also came by for a handshake. “We’re going to need a week now to process it all,” she says later while watching the men’s match against Wolfsburg at Clubheim *1900, as she reminisces further. The fact that women’s football was banned by the DFB in the early 1970s “was just ridiculous”, she says shaking her head. “It’s hard to believe now, which makes it all the more impressive that FC Bayern still managed to form a team.”
Back then, her daughters used to sit on Beckenbauer’s lap in the club restaurant; after their evening training sessions, they often had football theory classes in the Salvatorkeller until 11 pm. Later, they played tennis with Sepp Maier, and recently, on her 80th birthday, she was given two FCB jerseys as gifts – numbers 8 and 11, just like back then. “We didn’t get paid back in our day, but we wouldn’t trade places with today’s players.” Who needs bonuses when the memories are priceless? Without yesterday, there would be no today – and certainly no tomorrow. From pioneers to professionals, from rebels to world-class: what was once ridiculed now fills stadiums. The future of FC Bayern Women carries many names, but it stands on the shoulders of the heroines of 1976.
Text taken from the summer edition of members’ magazine ‘51’.
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