the league was won by SV Darmstadt 98 for a second time while runners-up Kickers Offenbach lost out to Braunschweig in the play-offs. The reduction of the league to a single division meant 22 teams were relegated while no team was promoted to the 2. Bundesliga that season. Single division era 1981 to 1991 The new single division league of 20 teams saw only a small change in modus. The top two in the league were promoted while the third placed team played the sixteenth placed Bundesliga side in a home-and-away play-off for one more spot in the Bundesliga. The bottom four in the league were relegated. The inaugural season saw FC Schalke 04 compete in the 2. Bundesliga for the first time, and win it. Second place went to Hertha BSC while third placed Kickers Offenbach missed out on promotion after losing both play-off games to Bayer Leverkusen. Fourth place went to 1860 Munich, one point behind Offenbach, but the club found itself relegated after the DFB refused it a license for the following season. This decision kept 17th placed SG Wattenscheid 09, the best-placed team on a relegation rank, in the league. The following season finally saw Kickers Offenbach win promotion from the 2. Bundesliga, behind champions SV Waldhof Mannheim who had never played in the Bundesliga before. Bayer Uerdingen, in third place, won promotion through the play-offs for a third time, this time overcoming the previous seasons 2. Bundesliga champions FC Schalke 04. Schalke bounced back immediately, coming second behind Karlsruher SC in 1983–84. Third place went to MSV Duisburg wo were decisively beaten 0–5 by Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt at home. At the other end, Rot-Weiss Essen, after having failed to win promotion to the Bundesliga through the play-offs twice from the 2. Bundesliga, was relegated to amateur football that season. 1. FC Nürnberg took out the championship of the single division 2. Bundesliga for the first time in 1985, with Hannover 96 coming second. Third placed 1. FC Saarbrücken also won promotion courtesy to a 2–0 home win over Arminia Bielefeld after a draw away. Kickers Offenbach, freshly relegated from the Bundesliga came only 19th in the 2. Bundesliga, suffered another relegation, as did another former Bundesliga side, FC St. Pauli, having returned to the league for the first time after having had its license revoked in 1979. In 1985–86, three clubs from Berlin competed