Bayernliga years
While the FC enjoyed two good first seasons in the highest league in the state, it did not so well when the ASV joined it there and with a third place in 1972–73, the Adidas-club finished above the Puma-team for the first time in years while FC went into decline for a time.[13]
The 1973–74 season became even more upsetting for the club as the ASV won the Amateurliga Bayern title while FC Herzogenaurach found itself relegated from the league, finishing 17th.[14]
Spending the next three seasons in the Landesliga, FC worked hard on a return to the Amateurliga, finishing in the top-three each year. FC earned its return to the Amateurliga Bayern through another league championship in 1977, the year ASV found itself relegated from the Bayernliga.[15]
The club managed to survive in the league for only one season before being handed down once more. Back in the Landesliga for 1978–79, it finished top of the league once more, beating ASV by a point to it.[16]
Upon return to what was now the Amateur Oberliga Bayern, the FC earned a respectabel seventh place before suffering relegation from the league the season after in 1981.[17]
The late 1970s also saw the rise of two promising young footballers in Herzogenaurach who went to school together. Günter Güttler, who played for the ASV and later joined FC Bayern Munich and Lothar Matthäus, who played for the FC and became Germany's most capped footballer. Matthäus could not play for the ASV even though it had at that time the better under-19's side, because his father worked for Puma.[18]
