Old Football in Russia

By Yuriy Ivantsiv

The book "Old Football in Russia" tells about the emergence and first steps of Russian football. About how sports clubs were created, how the first international matches and tournaments with the participation of Russian football players were held. The book describes in detail the championships of Russia, in which the teams of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Odessa, the trip of the Russian team to the Olympics in 1912, the first foreign tour of Soviet players in 1923. The story of these events gives an idea of the main stages of development of Russian football at the beginning of the century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Yuriy Ivantsiv
• Release date: Apr 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463786949

Book preview

Yuriy Ivantsiv

Old football in Russia

Written, cover and illustrations by Yuriy Ivantsiv

Copyright 2020 Yuriy Ivantsiv. All rights reserved.

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Table of contents

Foreword

Ball on a cyclodrome

SPB CLS

Mr. Out reports.

Football dual power

The arrival of the Corinthians

English Wanderers

Olympic Tsushima

Russia without Champion

Anniversary gift

Football League Clubs.

Spring Cup

All Moscow and All Petrograd.

Football half-premiums

Foreword

Football of long past days... It's rarely remembered. Even all-knowing football statistics and those do not show much enthusiasm when it comes to events, say, sixty years ago. It is clear - not so many materials have kept us football archives. And modern fans are more concerned about how Spartak or Dynamo will play or how the national team will perform.

But in the old  football there are a lot of forgotten interesting pages, pages not only curious, but also instructive. Learning them, you can better understand what is happening on the green fields today, see how far our sport has gone. Or maybe today's football is  similar to the previous one in something , something  taken from it? Or, on the contrary,  lost something in the rapid movement of the century and now he is so lacking these small particles?...

The guard of our football looks impressive now. Every boy knows the names of the best players. And in the ranks of these guards could rightfully take the place of those who paved the way for the ball at the turn of the century. Among them were people who were amazingly devoted to football, who devoted their lives to it, there were whole football families, there were also outstanding masters of the game at that time. And how many events made the hearts of the first fans beat faster!

Sports archives are really not rich in materials. But there are old newspapers and magazines where you can find amazing finds. Complement the picture so rare nowadays documents - football relics of the past years. And the most valuable, the most interesting is, of course, the word of the participants or eyewitnesses to the sporting events of previous times. Thanks to all this and is now able, after years of searching, at least partially restore the picture of the past.

So, old  football. About how they played, how they wrote about it, how they worried about it at the dawn of the XX century.

Go to Table of Contents

Ball on a cyclodrome

After intermission there was a very popular foot ball (football) game. The game was played between nasty games and ended in the victory of one of the parties.

Bicycle Magazine 1893.

Old St. Petersburg. It's autumn on the banks of the Neva. The gusty winds from the Baltics pulled off a light foggy blanket hanging over the city all summer. The contours of distant cathedrals, palaces and monuments are clearly outlined in the transparent air. The leaves are almost untouched by the purple and the  Neva is completely  blue in flight. But the Baltic winds brought a squadron of gray clouds from the sea, the rain caught on the roofs, and it was not visible behind his veil neither the dome of St. Isaac's, nor an angel on the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Neva is poured with lead ...

Autumn. St. Petersburg Autumn. According to the old newspaper weather reports, this was the same in September 1893.

Dacha season has just ended. Metropolitan residents have missed the fun. What awaits them in St. Petersburg? You can find out about it from the newspapers that put the main advertisements on the front pages. Here are the opening of the theatrical season, and a tour of the visiting Negro dance trio, and Sunday dinner with an orchestra at Palkin's restaurant for two and a half people, and, finally, the nail of the Sunday program - a competition of cyclists at the Semenovsky hippocycle lake .

The place where the new cyclodrome was located was well known to St. Petersburg residents. Previously, "the citizens were going to watch the moustaches of the Semyonovsky regiment dancing in the building straightening. And one day gallows were erected on the plateau and convicts of Petrashevsk, among them there were brought to the platform. Dostoevsky. Petrashevskiy was pardoned, and a few years later on this place the people of Narodovolsk were executed.

Later, the racetrack settled down here, and again the audience fell on the Semyonovsky platform. And now it's next to the racetrack, next to it. of the Tsarskoselsky railway station, there was also a place for bicycle racing.

It's a vast square, with a racetrack made of coarse sand and half a canvas around its circumference. On both sides there are stands with over 2,000 seats. Above the buffet pavilion there are boxes up to 25 - this is how  St. Petersburg newspapers described the Semyonovsky hippocycle lane.

In fact, it was the first stadium of the capital. The solemn opening with a parade of cyclists and a prayer took place on August 29. And in September, the posters were shot again: Semenovskyi hippocyclelodrome ... The  last competition of the season ... Bicycle against the three ... The participation of the famous French racer Charles Terron is expected ... Cyclodrome, cyclodrome ...

The weather is acidic in the morning, newspaper reporters gloomyly noted the whims of the St. Petersburg climate. But it did not confuse the citizens. How not to visit the new cyclodrome! When will you see the fight of the French champion with the Russian lucky triple!

All of St. Petersburg gathered in boxes. Masses of people crowded at the barrier. In the Society of cyclists , which organized the race, there were clever businessmen. For seats in the boxes, they broke the price as in the imperial theater - ten rubles! While the bike in fashion, wishing to find. And ordinary people will stand at the barrier and for fifteen kopecks. Such mass and comparatively accessible public spectacles did not know old St. Petersburg yet.

At two o'clock in the afternoon the bell announced the beginning of the competition. The first race. There are three competitors at the start. One of them is the famous skater Panshin. He shows the best result, but ... the winner's badge is awarded to the other, the one who has a bicycle weighs less. There's nothing to be done - those are the rules! Next number is running without bicycles halfway through. There are four of them, only two of them started. But the public isn't interested in these numbers. The audience is excited about the upcoming meeting with the French champion. Charles Terron came to St. Petersburg with a certain purpose: he had to make a return trip to Paris in record time.

There he is. A slim, short man circling the cyclodrome, elegantly bowing to the audience. Soon, dashingly tinkling with bells, he rolls out three dark-colored  suits of suit. Its owner, a carriage driver from Ligovka Kolupayev, is on the irradiation. The three also makes a test lap and stops. The coachman sits calmly, holding taut reins in his hands. With all his looks, he expresses contempt for cyclists.

Time to start the race. But what is it? The French champion is slowly leaving the lap. Turns out he's confused by the bad weather. He's being followed by other riders. Twenty-five versts is no joke!

Gentlemen cyclists chickened out, maybe they were just tired, the newspapers melancholy later wrote about the hitch.

There's one brave man after all . Let's get started. The biker picks up speed from his seat and goes forward. The three of them go in circles at an even pace. Halfway through, you can see that the cyclist has increased the gap. The grandstands are making noise. Some want to win the athlete, others - three. Lost his old peace of mind and the box, splattered with mud from head to toe. He took out the whip, and the horses went faster.

- Go, go, go! - screamed in the stands.

But that cry didn't help either. Cyclist Pokhilskyi was the first to come to the prize pole, overtaking his rival for almost two minutes. So the steel horse won the top three.

Pokhilskyi received a silver cup and a badge as a reward for his victory. The owner of the troika also did not remain in the overlay, earning fifty rubles. But the most important thing, of course, is fame, summed up this remarkable event in the newspaper "St. Petersburg Listok.

It was the fame that satisfied the participants of another unusual number of the program? which the audience liked as much as the competition of a cyclist with a trio.

High stakes were set on the square inside the circle, and the team started the game in a friendly manner. This was the football match  promised by the program.  That's when the St. Petersburgers got acquainted with the ball! But what kind of meeting was it?

Report on this match in September 1893, St. Petersburg leaf devoted exactly fourteen lines: "...after the fifth number, an intermission was announced. At this time, the audience was entertained by the athletes playing the foot ball (football) on the program. Recorded man 20. - The essence of the game is that one party of players trying to drive the ball - throwing his leg, head, anything but his hands - into the gate of the opponent party. The area for the game was covered with mud. Gentlemen athletes in white suits ran through the mud, smacking from all over to the mud, and soon turned into chimney sweepers. All the time, there was a silent laugh in the audience. The game ended in the victory of one game over another.

That's all the details. History, unfortunately, has not kept the names of masters of sportsmen or the exact result of football match on the Semenovskoe Platz. We can only assume that it was the first public match and a random event in Russian sports life.

Next week, enthusiastic about their success, cyclists  decided to repeat the competition on the cycling track. The only thing that embarrassed them was the fickleness of the St. Petersburg autumn. That's when the phrase that later became a classic formula for big sport appeared on posters for the first time: The match will take place in any weather.

But the fears were in vain. The weather was beautiful, and again the cyclodrome was full. The posters promised a variety of programs. But something wasn' t going well with the organizers. The traditional bell ringing has been ringing for a long time, calling to the beginning, and nobody at the start!

The crowd isn't happy to get lost. And then the organizers, to at least somehow  avoid a complete embarrassment, released on site outside the program 20 people to play ball.

St. Petersburgers saw football again. Last Sunday everyone was excited by the meeting with the French champion (Terrone still  went to Paris and in 13 days with the help of cyclists he  overcame a distance of about 3 thousand kilometers), a bout of a cyclist with three and in general all that novelty of Semenovsky Cyclodrome. At that time the unfamiliar ball game was well received.

That's not how it happened today. The audience craved more sensations than some  poorly understood football. Players did not spend half an hour on the court, as the stands again grumbled. Voices enough! were an