Bravest Footballers ever?
THE BRAVEST FOOTBALLERS EVER?
"I once read that in a cup final during the great famine of the 1930s, there were three Ukrainian brothers on a Kiev team that beat a team from Moscow, which was sponsored by the secret police," said Ian Walmsley in 2001. "Unfortunately, Stalin is reputed to have ordered the game to be replayed for political reasons; and the brothers warned not to win again. As an act of defiance on behalf of the starving Ukrainian people the Kiev team won the replay and the brothers disappeared into the Gulag. Is this true, or just a myth? If it's true, they must be the bravest footballers ever."
It seems that the events you describe didn't quite happen, Ian, but something very similar did. In 1942 Stalin did send a set of footballing brothers to the gulag - but they played for Spartak Moscow, not Dynamo Kiev. That same year, however, most of Dynamo's team were executed by the Nazis after refusing to throw a series of "friendly" matches.
We'll get the Spartak story out of the way first: Nikolai, Andrey, Petr and Alexander Starostin, the popular brothers who led Spartak to the USSR championship in 1937 and 1938 were illegally arrested as "public enemies" in 1942 by Stalin and dumped in the gulag. They were only released thirty years later. Alexander - the man who founded Spartak in 1922 - returned to the club to become "club leader" until his death in 1996.
Meanwhile, when Kiev was occupied in 1941, members of the Dynamo team found work in Kiev Bakery No. 1 and started to play football in an empty lot. The Germans offered them the opportunity to train in the Zenith Stadium and suggested a friendly with a team picked from the German army.
The Ukrainians accepted the offer, named their team Start and the match took place on June 12, 1942. The Germans, in good physical condition, scored the first goal. But by half-time Start had edged 2-1 ahead, much to the anger of a German officer from the Commandant's box who stormed into the team's dressing room and ordered them "not to play so keenly" - threatening to shoot them if they did not obey.
But Start ignored the warning and surged into a 4-1 lead. At that point the German Commandant of Kiev, Major-General Eberhardt, and his staff left, and the referee ended the game early. On July 17 the Germans fielded a stronger team, but still lost 6-0. Further Dynamo victories against the Hungarian team MSG Wal (5-1 and 3-2) followed.
The German administration was so outraged that they decided to teach the Ukrainians a lesson - and so the "ever victorious" German Flakelf team was invited. But this German team also lost to Dynamo and not a word about it appeared in the newspapers.
The Ukrainian team were given three days to think about their position and on August 9th there was a "friendly" rematch. In spite of the warnings Dynamo again defeated the German team - for the last time. Most of the Ukrainian team members were arrested and executed in Babyn Yar, but they are not forgotten. There is a monument to them in Kiev and their heroism is said to have inspired the film Escape to Victory.
It does make you think how many of todays footballing millionaire chavs of today would do anything like this.....remarkable
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Originally Posted by Tomi says
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