Miscellaneous

The Table Tennis Bundesliga has reason to celebrate: Germany's top league is in its 60th season and, to mark its anniversary, is more attractive and high-quality than ever before. Until its “birthday” in September 2026, we will regularly be looking back at the milestones in the development of the upper house into what is now the strongest league in Europe. In the second part of our journey through an era of German sporting history, we look back at the first season of the historic predecessor of today's TTBL.

All beginnings have always been difficult – and the Table Tennis Bundesliga was no exception when it made its debut on September 10 and 11, 1966. Fans, who at the time were probably better described as table tennis enthusiasts, and the (media) public reacted much more cautiously than hoped for to the introduction of the new elite class.

The sporting events of that memorable weekend can be summarized fairly concisely: defending champions VfL Osnabrück made an immediate statement with a 9-1 victory in the rematch of last season's semi-final against SSV Reutlingen, and runners-up SV Moltkeplatz confirmed their status as favorites against TTC Mörfelden with a 9-4 victory, as did 1. FC Saarbrücken, the fourth and last semi-finalist from last year, with a 9-5 win at Post SV Augsburg and a 9-6 win at TSV Milbertshofen. DJK TuSa Düsseldorf was the only team from the qualifying quartet to get off to a successful start in the new era with a 9-3 win over Mörfelden.

However, only 480 spectators passed through the hall doors for the first five matches – in total. The rush of media representatives also remained within manageable limits. The average attendance of less than 100 fans was all the more of a damper on the rampant optimism not only among the eight clubs involved, given that last summer, more than 300 spectators cheered on the teams in the promotion round.

The dire predictions of DTTB sports director Rudi Gruber quickly seemed to be coming true. “The establishment of a Bundesliga,” Gruber wrote in the association magazine “dts” on the eve of a new era for top-level German table tennis, “will raise many problems. No one can say yet whether this step will bring the expected sporting benefits,” the DTTB board member made little secret of his skepticism, but at the same time gave the project a chance: “Sport thrives on risk-taking and confronting the new.”

In fact, as is so often the case in sport, the daring and willingness to innovate paid off in the weeks and months following the modest start. More and more people in Germany discovered the “fascination of the Bundesliga”: With attendance figures peaking at 450 fans (Reutlingen vs. Düsseldorf) and Osnabrück proving to be a crowd puller (averaging 325 spectators per home game), the DTTB was able to report exactly 13,060 visitors, or an average of 233 fans, at each of the 56 matches at the end of the debut season of its new elite league. A very encouraging development for a start.

A decisive factor in this was the changed character of the upper house: the public quickly realized that the introduction of the Bundesliga had created a huge stage for the stars. Whereas Eberhard Schöler, Conny Freundorfer, Erich Arndt, Wilfried Lieck, and others had previously been able to showcase their skills only at a regional level before the championship finals, they now made eagerly awaited appearances at regular intervals across the whole of Germany, so to speak. “Stars you can touch” – this principle, which was probably not even the primary intention of the Bundesliga's founding fathers, was to develop into a unique success story over the decades.

Incidentally, the first Bundesliga championship went to Düsseldorf. The decisive factor in the Rhinelanders' title win around “Mr. Pokerface” Schöler, who underlined his exceptional position in Germany with a record of 26:1 victories, was the future champions' victories in both neighborhood duels in the final table, with only a one-point lead over Essen, who were once again runners-up.

Freundorfer experienced the opposite of Schöler. The former number one had to leave the top flight after just one year with TSV Milbertshofen, who were bottom of the table. The top flight was set to be expanded to ten teams the following season with the addition of three promoted teams (Tennis Borussia Berlin, Eintracht Frankfurt, and Borussia Düsseldorf).

Florian Manzke