In fifty years of the second Bundesliga in Germany there have been a lot of strange characters. In addition to well-known names like Walter Frosch, Ansgar Brinkmann and Olaf Thon, someone who once wanted to make it into the big football world as an Argentine champion – and then ended up in Wattenscheid – also stands out!
“It sounds like a fairy tale,” writes author Hardy Grüne in his recently published book “First Class. 50 Years of the 2nd League” – and in fact the story is about the “ball magician from Buenos Aires, who played for SG Wattenscheid 09 in the Klopperliga the disreputable 2nd Bundesliga”, a very special story from five decades in the so-called substructure of the Bel Etage of German football. But that’s exactly what happened.
It was the year 1974 when Carlos Babington had high hopes for a world career in paid football. A year earlier he had become Argentine champion with his club Huracán under the coaching legend César Menotti and now he had shown quite impressive performances at the World Cup in Germany in the summer.
His idea was to stay in Europe after the World Cup anyway. And Stoke City from the First Division on the island had already made an offer to the grandson of an English grandfather. The only problem: his grandfather couldn’t find the birth certificate he needed anywhere. And so the dream of England was shattered.
Steilmann was completely in love with Babington
But then, surprisingly, Inter Milan became extremely interested in the talented Argentine. They even entered into the first negotiations, but then it quickly became clear that Carlos Babington unfortunately had no Italian ancestors. And without this, Inter couldn’t sign him. Now the 24-year-old curly-haired Argentinian only had hope for the World Cup in Germany – and his own appearance. And that’s where Babington scored. Especially with one person: the district patron, patron and ambitious president of the club from the then still independent city in the central Ruhr area, the SG Wattenscheid 09, Klaus Steilmann.
The charismatic entrepreneur really fell in love with the Argentinian – perhaps especially because he saw him as a worthy successor to his foster son Hannes Bongartz, who had emigrated to Gelsenkirchen. The transfer of the “Asparagus Tarzan” for almost 770,000 marks caused a stir in the area. His future teammate Rolf Rüssmann said at the time: “It fits well. He’s also blonde. Just like Nigbur, Fichtel, van den Berg, Sobieray, Scheer, Lütkebohmert, the two Kremers and me. From the end of August, the cool blondes will come out of the gray West in the Bundesliga!” And Carlos Babington was also blonde – but from now on he didn’t set up his tent at Schalke, but a few meters further east in what later became Bochum 6.
Hardy Grüne writes in his book about the 2nd league, which is well worth reading: “The Argentine should make Steilmann’s dream of promotion to the Bundesliga perfect. ‘We are happy that Carlos Babington is finally with us after a long back and forth, and we hope that this footballer par excellence will enrich our harmonious club life,’ said the Wattenscheider entrepreneur happily at the presentation of the new superstar, for whom he had to put 200,000 US dollars on the table.”
Babington got to know the wonderful world of the second division
But Babington was not only a real attraction for the Bochum area, but for the entire second division, which had just started its first season ever. And so the Argentine football champion, national player and World Cup participant suddenly found himself on the provincial pitches of the Republic and played against clubs like 1. FC Mülheim, Wacker 04 Berlin, SpVgg Erkenschwick, Olympia Wilhelmshaven and HSV Barmbek-Uhlenhorst. And although Babington was “an absolute asset in terms of sport” and scored an outstanding 46 goals in 120 second division games, “his teammates could only reflect his class to a limited extent”.
Despite Babington, Steilmann’s dream of promotion to the Bundesliga was dashed and SG Wattescheid 09 became, as Hardy Grüne writes, “the epitome of a gray mouse in the 2nd Bundesliga North”. But for Carlos Babington, things didn’t get any better after his time in Bochum 6 either. His planned move to River Plate in Buenos Aires fell through in 1978 and so, despite his former coach at Huracán and then coach of the national team, César Menotti, he missed the World Cup and thus also won the World Cup in his own country.
Carlos Babington will always have a very special place in the history of the 2nd Bundesliga. He was probably one of the greatest footballers this league has seen in all of its fifty years. The fairy tale of the ball magician in the Klopperliga is still popularly told today, and not just in Wattenscheid. Actually, all that was missing was the happy ending. But SG Wattenscheid 09 only achieved promotion to the Bundesliga in 1990 – after the return of Klaus Steilmann’s old foster son, Hannes Bongartz. And that is also one of the many wonderful stories from fifty years that Hardy Grüne tells in his entertaining book “First Class. 50 Years of the 2nd League”.
