DJ’s JOTTINGS – NUMBER 11 (MOSCOW)

 

 

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A couple of English mill owners introduced football to Russia in the 1880’s and the first club wore Blackburn Rovers colours. St Petersburg was the centre of football in the early days, but wars, politics, geography and climate hindered development on a national scale. It only really took off after World War II when Moscow became the major football city in what was now the Soviet Union.

 

The national side reached the World Cup quarter-finals in 1958 and semi-finals in 1966. In between they were the inaugural European Champions in 1960 and runners-up in 1964. At club level floodlit tours of Britain aroused great interest and by the mid-60’s Soviet football was attracting the largest attendances in the World.

 

Since the break-up of the USSR in 1991 Russia has had its own league with two national divisions and a third tier split into 3 regions. Crowds have plummeted but the standard of football is still pretty good with at least one Russian side reaching the league stage of the Champions League in most seasons. Moscow is still the centre and an extremely interesting city besides.

 

A large party by euro-hopping standards set off from Heathrow Airport on a Thursday morning, exactly one week prior to the big terrorist scare. Our British Airways flight took us to Moscow’s Domodedovo airport and although we had the earlier hassle and cost of obtaining a visa, progress through immigration is remarkably smooth and easy. This is just as well as a fixture change sees our first match being played on the evening of our arrival.

 

Use the airport shuttle train and then the metro to go straight to the Dinamo Stadium. The underground system is very impressive once you have got the hang of the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom style ticket barriers, descended the seemingly never-ending escalator to the bowels of the earth and translated what line and station you want from the Cyrillic lettering. Trains arrive every one or two minutes and rattle along at breakneck speed. Some of the stations, particularly on the ‘circle line’ are works of art. Dinamo Station is 6 stops from Paveletskaya on the helpfully colour coded dark green line.  

 

Having come straight from the airport we were very pleased to find a free left luggage hut at the ground, a facility which seemed to be available at most of the larger stadia at least. There are scores of army and police in evidence, bag searches and security scanners but no hint of any trouble. Pay 500 roubles (about £10.50) for entry with a smart glossy programme costing 100 roubles.

 

Dinamo, or Dynamo Moscow were historically the dreaded secret police team. 11 times Soviet champions and the first and until recently the only Russian side to reach a European final (1972 Cup-Winners Cup). Tonight however, its ground sharers CSKA taking on Luch Energiya Vladivostok in the Prim’er Liga. Spare a thought for the visitors who had to cross about nine time zones to get there, Russia varying from being 1 to 12 hours ahead of GMT (Moscow is + 3). It would apparently have taken a week for Vladivostok to travel using the Trans Siberian Express. I guess they probably flew!

 

CSKA were formed in 1923 as the team of the Red Army. They dominated the early post-war period winning 5 league titles in 6 years. Only two more have been gained since, including the final Soviet Championship in 1991. A period of decline set in and the club were forced to leave their historic home and move in with Dynamo. In recent years CSKA have revived even winning the UEFA Cup in 2005.

 

The Dynamo Stadium is a large oval bowl around the remnants of an athletics track. About 30 rows of continuous open seating provide an overall capacity of just under 38,000. About 6,000 turn up tonight. The only cover is for small VIP areas on each side and for the press. Four huge floodlight pylons lean inwards towards the pitch.

A pretty good match sees the home team triumphant by 2 goals to 1 although both sides could and probably should have scored more, CSKA even missing a penalty. This victory takes them to the top of the table.

 

The Hotels Zarya and Irbis are close together in a quiet residential area 8 kilometres from the centre. Easy to spot our station, it’s the longest name on the list. The hotels take a bit of finding at night and in the rain. The 7 minute walk from Petrovsko-Razumovskaya metro station turns into a 45 minute route march as we crucially miss the footpath over the main railway line and follow the main road instead. Several vodka fuelled locals ‘try’ to assist us. The hotels are quite a good standard, except for the absence of hot water in the entire area due to works on the system, and running out of local beer on the first night, meaning we have to resort to the inferior and more expensive imported variety. The contents of the breakfast tureen are interesting to say the least, starting reasonably enough with porridge, but on other days it becomes chicken and mushroom soup, semolina or cheese sauce!

 

The Friday morning is spent sightseeing, centred on Red Square with the imposing red brick walls of the Kremlin, Lenin’s mausoleum and the green, orange and gold domes of St Basil’s Cathedral. A good 3-course lunch for under a fiver sets us up for our second match. However, many of the restaurants and shops are now fairly expensive. The days of empty shops have gone and the only long queues are to see Lenin’s tomb.

 

Khimki is located to the north-west of the city itself but still part of the Moscow district. Take the metro to the end of one of the lines and then a trolleybus to get there. FK Khimki are in the Pervej (second) Division and while their normal home, the Novatar Stadium, is being re-developed they are based at the Sport Complex Novi Khimki. This is a newish looking ground with covered seating on 3 sides, a small elevated VIP area on one side and a synthetic pitch. The estimated capacity is 3,500, about 2,000 attending this particular game. Entrance is the equivalent of £1.50 and a programme is available for 70p. Khimki were only formed in 1997 and stand 2^nd in the table. They fairly comfortably defeat mid-table visitors Dinamo BP from Bryansk by 2-0.

 

Saturday afternoon provides the best game of our trip at Russia’s largest ground, the 84,745 capacity Olimpiyskiy, or Luzhniki Stadium. It was opened for the 1956 Olympics and used again in 1980 when Alan Wells was among the gold medallists. One continuous bowl of seating around the athletics track with the roof continuing all round as well, and surprisingly, a synthetic pitch. I thought Champions League matches had been played there. Admission for good seats on the side costs 500 roubles and a programme is 200 roubles.

 

The ground is used by both Spartak and Torpedo Moscow. The old Torpedo ground is still in existence and used currently by FK Moscow! (Sounds a bit like the Mid Comb). Today’s game sees Spartak take on Rostov Na Donu. Spartak have always been the people’s team, not aligned to any particular class or political group. Nikolai Starostin guided the club through most of its existence until his death aged 93, in 1996. His resolute stance against the Red Army and KGB sides cost him 10 years in the gulags, having been found guilty of the heinous crime of ‘the promotion of bourgeois sport’. As recently as 1997 the club’s Director General was murdered, this being linked to a refusal to sign over TV rights.

 

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Spartak were the top side winning 9 titles in the first 10 years. Lying 3^rd in the table prior to this match, they turn on the style in a superb first half. Three cracking goals help contribute to a 5-1 lead at half-time. The visitors get the only goal of the second period as the pace understandably drops a little. The crowd is about 6,000, somewhat lost in such a large arena.

 

The Stadium is part of a large sports complex beside the Moskva River with Lenin’s statue standing guard, an Olympic Way lined with fountains and flowers and fine views up to the Moscow State University, one of Stalin’s skyscrapers. One of our group browses at the souvenir stalls and is astonished and delighted to find a programme from a game that a friend went to about a decade ago and did not get a copy.

 

Have to resort to reserve football in order to get a Saturday evening game. Lokomotiv II play Amkar Perm II on the reserve field outside their main stadium. It has 4 rows of open seats along one side and a small stand plus elevated VIP area in front of the changing rooms on the opposite side. No admission price is charged and there is not even a team sheet available, to the consternation of some. It is a fine game however and produces our second 5-2 score line of the day in front of just under 300 spectators. The entertainment value is enhanced by trying to add up the shirt numbers. The total of the starting 22 players is over 1100 with a ‘99’ and very few below ‘40’. For the reserve league 6 subs per side are allowed and when you add these in as well the total shirt numbers exceed 1500!

 

On the Sunday the first teams of Lokomotiv and Amkar Perm play in the main ‘Loko’ stadium. Their new stadium was opened 4 years ago. Built on the same site as the old ground it holds almost 31,000 and it was the first major new ground built exclusively for football in Russia. It is a compact two tier English style ground with executive boxes between each tier. The support cables for the roof were supplied by Bridon Ropes. £7 gains entry to one of the best seats and the programme costs just over £2.

 

Lokomotiv as their name suggests are the railway workers team. They have never win a major league title but have triumphed twice in the Soviet Cup and 4 times in the last decade in the Russian Cup.

The shirt numbers are a little lower tonight and Gary O’Connor, ex-Hibernian, appears for the home side. The crowd of just over 9,000 sees a decent game, albeit a goalless draw. The Lokomotiv fans have a chant that imitates a train starting off and a train horn sounds when they ‘score’. Unfortunately ‘the goal’ is then ruled out by the referee. The visitors gain in strength in the second half, hitting the bar as well as being denied three times from close range by the Loko keeper.

 

Time left to visit a couple of bars, the home brew ‘Tinkoff’ and ‘Fifth Ocean’ where there are individual beer taps on every table. A fitting end to an excellent trip.