They were 4,000 in 1970, then 5,000 in 1971. This time, they will be nearly 6,000 spectators to crowd around the handrail and stand on the embankments, on either side of the field, as well as behind. the goal which turns its back on the road to Bouxwiller. 6,000 spectators in Imbsheim!
More than anywhere in which Racing evolved in the D2 championship during the 1971/72 season (987 spectators in Béziers, around a thousand in La Ciotat, Ajaccio and Cannes, two thousand in Toulouse, Martigues, Sète, Aix and Montélimar , 3,000 in Cuiseaux, Toulon, Montpellier, Arles and Gueugnon and 4,519 in Avignon during the summit between the first two of the championship).
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At the Mondial 74 with an electrician card
“Days like those in Imbsheim are those that we will not forget”, slips Jean-Pierre Meyer, trainee journalist during the summer of 72 at the DNA , now retired. Racing specialist with Bernard Delattre (died last December 12 at the age of 71), he will be the 1is journalist DNA to cover a World Cup, that of 1974 in Germany.
“An incredible story. On Monday morning, Willy Bock, head of the sports department of the newspaper announces to me: “you are leaving for Frankfurt”, to cover the opening match on Thursday. I have no ticket, no hotel, no accreditation. I get in touch with an electrical installation company, which gives me an electrician’s card, the key to entering the Waldstadion and attending, sitting in the rain on the stairs, with my notebook, the confrontation between the Brazilian Seleçao by Paulo Cesar and Yugoslavia by Katalinski (0-0). After the match, I send my paper from a telephone booth to Marie-Odile, the head of the shorthand service. “
During the 1971/72 season which has just ended, Racing of Casimir Novotarski, with a fabulous Ivica Osim at the helm, gold passer for Marco Molitor (38 goals), delighted the supporters. The wide victories, 9-1 against Arles, 8-0 against Montpellier, 6-0 against La Ciotat, are linked.
“With players of this caliber, it was fantastic”
The young Richard Schalber, 18, with twenty appearances in pros, two goals against Avignon and another against Arles, is entitled to his share of the pie: “It was fantastic for me who came from the Dorfmatt in Uberach and D4, to evolve alongside players as prestigious as Osim, Hausser or Molitor. I was having fun. I remember that before the matches, they were massaged, I did not know that. I tried, but it didn’t work, so I gave up. “
Le Racing, 1is of group C of D2, Sedan, 1is from group A and Valenciennes, 1is of group B – the three failures of the season before – regain their rank in D1, in place of Lille, Monaco and Angoulême, relegated to D2. Valenciennes, winner 0-1 at Sedan, then 1-0 ahead of Racing at Nungesser thanks to a goal from Didier Six, is French D2 champion, while OM of Carnus, Bosquier, Gress, Magnusson, Skoblar and Couecou picks up his 4e title of champion of France.
At the dawn of this new 1972/73 season, Alfred Wenger will achieve a new tour de force. After attracting Osim, the Yugoslav star, the Imbsheimois entrepreneur will take two new big fish in his nets.
With the Dutchman Heinz Van Haaren, the lung of Schalke 04, half finalist of the European cup winners’ cup, vice-champion of Germany and winner of DfB Pokal against 1. FC Kaiserslautern alongside Libuda and by Klaus Fischer. And with Reinhard Libuda (ex-Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04), nicknamed “Stan” in reference to the Englishman Stanley Matthews, another charming dribbler. The German international, involved in a scandal of matches bought in 1971, banned by the DFB, must go into exile abroad.
The two players land in France on the morning of the match in Imbsheim. Racing, on the other hand, separates from the virtuoso Osim (who signs at Sedan), because the Groupement prohibits more than two foreign players per club.
In Imbsheim, Herbert Veit is in heaven, with a Racing which finds the D1 and which announces Hausser, Libuda, Van Haaren, Molitor, Zamojski, Deutschmann, Hackl, Serrus, Berthommier, the vivacious winger Roy, arrived from Angers, the hopes Alsatians Rey, Sénéchal, Burkhard, as well as a young local, Richard Schalber.
The poster is salivating. Marcel Helbringer, the coach of US Imbsheim is thinking about composing a regional selection, capable of offering good opposition, “we have retained good players, capable of playing well on the ball, like Jacky Hartstreisel and Claude Klein of FC Schwindratzheim, the twins Allgeyer, Pierre and Roland (not kept by Racing, they signed at Imbsheim on the recommendation of Alfred Wenger, with them the USI was the Bas-Rhin D2 champion in 1973 and reached the 1re times in its history in D1), Joseph Winckler of FC Schweighouse, Dany Pfister of FC Saverne, André Jérôme de Mertzwiller, Jean-Claude Fuchs and Michel Hottler, who will be Alsace champions in 1973 with the SR Haguenau. “
“There was a great, quality team who knew how to handle the ball well. I will always remember that at 4-0 (goals from R. Schalber in the 2nd ‘, J. Hartstreisel who surprised A. Rey in the 21st on a direct corner, A. Jérôme in the 24th on a perfect serve from C. Klein and D. Pfister in the 55th ‘), Gérard Hausser harangued his partners, “we have to get moving, guys, because it’s playing very well in the face,” says Jacky Hartstreisel.
“Everything smiled on us”
The pros rectify the shot by Van Haaren, of a 25m missile in the 68th ‘and by Yvan Roy in the 71e ‘, but the amateurs won 4-2 in the end. “It was fantastic, the weather was nice, there were cars and people everywhere. Everything smiled on us that day, I even remember a big bridge over Roy, we were all very proud, ”recalls Roland Allgeyer.
July 16, 1972 will be the 3e and the last time that Racing will deposit its business card in the Imbsheim basin. Because in December 1972, there was a crisis in French professional football. While club presidents intend to end the fixed-term contract, experienced since 1969, the players and their union, the National Union of Professional Footballers, go on strike.
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The players go on strike
As a good Alsatian, disciplined and respectful of order, President Wenger, in view of the efforts he has made since 1968 to save the club, places his players, in the green in the Alps, in front of their responsibilities. The Imbsheimois thinks that Molitor and his partners will not follow the movement of revolt and will go to Marseille, to face OM. Thunderclap and great disappointment for A. Wenger, the players refused to go to the Vélodrome.
In an emergency, Paco Matéo brings together 12 amateur players, including Mommenheimers Conrath and Specht, who will lose 4-0 with honors in front of Olympians Skoblar, Bosquier, Gress, Bonnel and Trésor. Alfred Wenger asks his committee, as well as the committees of all the clubs where the players were on strike, to resign as a whole. If the attitude meets with total support from public opinion, the victory will go to the players who obtain the maintenance of the fixed-term contract.
Alfred Wenger resigned after a four-and-a-half-year term as President of Racing-Club Strasbourg, between June 68 and December 72. He was replaced by Philippe Fass, a specialist in the clothing trade. Born September 28, 1917 in Imbsheim, he died July 24, 1991 at the age of 73.
Next Saturday, the page will be devoted to the reunion of the players of the three selections who had faced Racing in 1970, 1971 and 1972 and who will meet again this afternoon at 2:30 p.m., 50 years later, in the Imbsheim basin.
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