Also largely unknown: the first match abandoned in Bundesliga history involved Fortuna Düsseldorf. Kaiserslautern, 27 November 1976. It was 4:56 p.m. when an incident on the Betzenberg shocked football Germany. Small liqueur bottles were thrown from the Westkurve – where the FCK’s most loyal supporters stood – onto the pitch during the match between 1. FC Kaiserslautern and Fortuna Düsseldorf.
Referee Rudolf Frickel from Munich alerted Lautern captain Josef Pirrung. Pirrung signaled to the stadium announcer and to coach Erich Ribbeck. When more bottles landed on the turf, Frickel abandoned the match.
It was the first Bundesliga abandonment due to crowd interference. Fortuna were leading 1–0 at the time. “Weeks later, 1. FCK were held accountable for the irresponsible conduct of a handful of fanatics,” Peter Lenk and Gerhard Reuther wrote in 1978 in The Football Kings of the Palatinate. The consequences were a hefty fine and a points deduction.
Fortuna were awarded a 2–0 victory, which is why, as of December 2019, only they and Werder Bremen have official own goals in their statistics without a credited scorer.
