In the 1976/1977 season, VfB won promotion back to the Bundesliga. Together with the protagonists from back then, we are recalling the events of 40 years ago and presenting the players from the promotion winning side. Between Christmas and New Year, on www.vfb.de, we will be publishing the stories which have been appearing in the match-day programme throughout the current campaign.

It was a moment that Arno Schäfer will never forget: Preparations for the 1976/1977 season were underway and VfB had just arrived at the team training camp. There then followed a situation that the now 62-year-old can vividly recall some 40 years later, as if it had happened just a matter of days ago. "Shortly beforehand, the club had invited us to a high-class meal in Stuttgart – and it was then explained to us that every player’s salary would be cut by one third. The team were respectively demoralised by the time we arrived in the training camp," explained Arno Schäfer, continuing "the sweaty and clearly angry new trainer Jürgen Sundermann gathered the team and said: 'anyone here who doesn’t believe in our promotion chances – get up now and leave’." It was one single sentence that would change everything and was to prove the initial impulse for an unbelievable team spirit, as Arno Schäfer recalled.

No-one left

Whatever the reason may have been – no-one got up and left! And Arno Schäfer didn’t leave either. Over the course of the 1976/1977 season, Arno Schäfer made 27 highly motivated appearances for the Cannstatt Boys – playing a significant role in eventually securing promotion back to the top-flight.