The first Russian football team. "Wild" football of the Russian Empire. The players did not ask to be released

It is believed that football originated more than 150 years ago. And at the same time the Odessa British Athletic Club was created. The OBAC club was founded by the English who lived in Odessa. At first, only subjects of the English crown played for the club. This was not due to discrimination against the population. Ordinary workers did not know how to play football, and there were no teachers, or rather, they could not afford such a game. The British played with the Romanians, as well as with the teams of English ships. A few decades later, several football clubs appeared, such as: “Sporting”, “Odessa Football Circle” and many others. Website " In the country" will tell exactly about those years of formation of the first football clubs of the Russian Empire.

A century ago, football reached St. Petersburg. The British brought him here. The first match took place in 1897. At the same time, a football club was created, which unites football fans. The club was called the “Circle of Sports Lovers.” In the same year, the football club held a team meeting. The “Circle of Sports Lovers” and the “Vasilevo Society” took to the football field. The guests defeated the hosts, the match ended 6:0. This score will forever be remembered by fans of domestic football.

In the 20th century, another formation occurred - the St. Petersburg Football League. This club includes dozens of the strongest teams in St. Petersburg. In 1901, the first place was taken by the Nevka club, which later became the strongest club in the city.

A few years later, following the example of Odessa and St. Petersburg, a football club appeared in Moscow. Then Kyiv and Kherson also acquired personal sports clubs. The British played the main role in Russian football. Only in England were professional players born. Players from Liverpool, Manchester and many other sports cities where football flourished for quite a long time arrived on Russian teams.

In difficult times under the Tsar, the team of the Russian Empire was founded. In 1911, there was an attempt in Russia to assemble a football team from professional players. Football players from large cities where it was developed were invited to the team. The Russian team consisted of players from Moscow and St. Petersburg. But Odessa residents were also part of the national football team. But the team was weak and were never able to win during the meetings. At the end of August in 1911, several games were played, which ended very poorly for our team.

A year later, the Russian team participated in the Olympic Games. The opening football tournament failed miserably with a score of 2:1 in favor of Finland. In the next match, the German team showed a wonderful game, and the Russians again could not win back. The score was 16:0. The following matches were played against the national teams of Norway and Hungary. And here the Russian team was unable to show its skills.
In 1912, the All-Russian Football Union was created, which included more than 30 large cities and the same number of football clubs. In 1912, a football match was held in the Russian Empire, which included St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kharkov. Odessa and Kyiv initially also planned to enter the club and show qualified play, but for independent reasons, the teams withdrew from participation. In the quarter finals, Kharkov lost to Moscow with a score of 1:6. The Kyiv team did not dare to take part in the game with St. Petersburg, and therefore was disqualified. In the semi-finals, Moscow and St. Petersburg met on the football field and showed a really beautiful game, which ended in a 2:2 draw. Due to the fog that was on that day, it was proposed to replay the match. Here the St. Petersburg team broke away from the Moscow team with a score of 4:1. The Odessa team was invited to play with the St. Petersburg team, but the game never took place. And in 1912, the St. Petersburg team was proclaimed the champion of Russia.

The second Russian championship took place in 1913. The teams were divided into “Champions of the North”. This included cities such as Moscow, Bogorodsk, St. Petersburg and Lodz, and the “Champions of the South”. The team of southern champions included such cities as Rostov-on-Don, Kyiv, Kherson, Odessa. The game started with ½ finals for the north and ¼ for the south. At the southern meeting, the team from Odessa was recognized as the absolute champion, and in the north - St. Petersburg.

The teams of Odessa and St. Petersburg met in the final. The match took place among the southern residents in Odessa and ended in victory for the Odessa residents. But the game was not meant to end quietly and calmly. The St. Petersburg team decided to challenge the game and filed a protest. The St. Petersburg team emphasized that the Odessa team had exceeded the limit of foreign players (there were 4 foreign players in the team). In turn, the Odessa team said that it was the first time they had heard about innovations in the rules. As a result, the All-Russian Football Union decided to cancel the match, and they decided to consider the national championship as not being played. A year after this incident, the war began, and football had to be forgotten for some time.

Just a century ago, the now popular football was far from the most famous sport. At least in Russia, only at the beginning of the 20th century did it make its way, and, surprisingly, came to life both as a sport for the “highest circles” of society, and as entertainment for the proletarians - the so-called “wild” football.

You can learn about how different classes perceived football differently and how the British diaspora played it in Russia from Sergei Arkadyev’s book “Another Football is Possible.” VATNIKSTAN publishes an excerpt from his work, published last year by the Pulp Fiction publishing house.

“Kashnin showed football. Playing ball with your feet. We split into two camps. Each camp had a gate. There is a guard at the gate. The essence of the game is to get the ball into the opponent's goal. And do not touch the ball with your hands. But there is a great temptation to grab the ball, throw it and win! But this is impossible!”
(Newspaper “Responses of the Caucasus”, Armavir, No. 5, October 3, 1909)

Today we can only guess about when football was first played on the territory of modern Russia. The Russian Football Union uses October 24, 1897 as a starting point - the day when a match took place in St. Petersburg between the teams of the Vasileostrovsky Society of Football Players and the Circle of Sports Amateurs. The meeting came to the attention of the then press. What gave it a special twist was that the Vasileostrovsk team, which won with a score of 6–0, consisted entirely of British players, while the KLS (or simply “Sport”) also included Russians.

Overseas fun

Europeans, especially the British, played leading roles in Russian football in the next decade. In the first unofficial cup tournament in St. Petersburg, held in 1901, the English and Scottish teams fought in the final. In Moscow, the undefeated British Sports Club dominated. Its chairman was the director of the stearin plant in Lefortovo, Godfray, and only British subjects were accepted as participants, and there was no end to them. By 1910, the number of club members numbered as many as 180 people.

Young Russian capitalism needed energetic foreign managers. The posts of directors of newly opened enterprises were occupied by guests from Western Europe. Along with them came specialists, engineers, accountants, and office workers who served in the same enterprises and, after work, played the popular game of football in their homeland.

Match between the national teams of St. Petersburg and Stockholm. St. Petersburg, April-May 1913

They say that a certain magazine “Samokat” wrote about such games of colonists back in 1868. Nikolai Travkin in his “Anthology of Football of the Russian Empire” refers to the “Yearbook of the All-Russian Football Union for 1912,” which states that in 1878, matches were held in Odessa between the team of the Odessa British Athletic Club with teams of British ships, port employees and Romanian club Galati. In 1879, the “Charter and Rules of the English St. Petersburg Football Club” were published. Mentions of “respectable-looking” Englishmen playing football on the field near the V.Ya. machine-building plant. Gopper and Co,” found in the Moscow press for 1895. But all these were publications from the “their morals” series. English and German colonists lived separately in Russia, and therefore the game remained popular only in their circles.

The fourth, after Moscow, St. Petersburg and Odessa, the center of the origin of football in Russia was the village of Orekhovo and its surroundings (the territory of the modern city of Orekhovo-Zuyevo), which at the end of the 19th century belonged to the Vladimir province. In a village with strong Old Believer traditions, manufactories of the Morozov family opened. The manager of the enterprises, the Englishman James Charnock, a former member of FC Blackburn Rovers, and his brother Harry tried to organize a football club in Orekhovo back in 1887. However, the Orekhovo sports club was officially formed much later - in 1908. By that time, there were already several dozen registered teams in Russia. Football was played in Kherson, Nikolaev, Kharkov, Riga, Tver, Saratov, Astrakhan, Blagoveshchensk and Port Arthur.

First steps

The first journalistic review of a football match, as mentioned above, was published in the capital's press in 1897. The author of the Petersburg newspaper, justifying the Russian players, wrote that their rivals - the English team "Vasileostrovtsy" - have been playing together for 6 years. At the turn of the century, football in the city on the Neva received strong development. Since 1901, a league founded by the Englishman Ivan Richardson began operating in St. Petersburg.

The first official Moscow club was the Sokolniki Sports Club, organized in 1905. A few years earlier, an international group of enthusiasts led by Roman Fulda began to gather at Thornton’s dacha in Sokolniki to hone their skills in playing ball. Until his emigration to Germany in 1922, Fulda played a colossal role in the history of the development of football in Russia, was the first to translate the rules of the game into Russian, donated his money for the cup for the Moscow championship, and even served as the second coach of the team at the Olympic Games in 1912. Fulda, together with his associates, became a member of the commission for organizing outdoor games at the Moscow Hygienic Society and asked for the opportunity to hold matches in Sokolniki.

Soon the games moved to the neighboring Shiryaevo Field, which gave the team a second unofficial name. No one had any equipment. The soccer balls were ordered from the UK. Andrey Savin in his book “Football Moscow: People. Events. Facts” gives the memoirs of one of the pioneers of Russian football, Leonid Smirnov, about how it all began: “We, the first football players, had no idea about sports shorts, T-shirts and boots. We played in our usual costume: long trousers, simple shoes, and some even boots... Many years passed before we got to panties, boots and T-shirts. None of us dared to bare our knees for a long time. Such was the time then, morals were completely different!”

It is curious that the first team to dress in a football uniform was the Bykovo children's club, which over time became, in modern terms, a farm club for Sokolniki. The Bykovo team got its name due to the dacha area in which it was located. Shiryaev Pole players came here to relax for the summer, continuing their training. In order to have someone to practice with, the Shiryaevites taught local youth the game. Parents of young football players, who considered that it was too expensive to buy another set of trousers for their children to play football, decided to sew them a short uniform (so as not to tear) themselves.

But it was not the uniform or equipment that was the most expensive. A football club membership card cost a lot of money. For example, in SKS the one-time entrance fee was 20 rubles, and the annual membership fee was 30 rubles. For comparison, 20 rubles at that time was the average salary of a factory worker or a low-ranking employee. Football clubs united the elite of society, children of wealthy families. Many teams refused on principle to recruit commoners to their ranks. The Orekhovo club was actually the first team to play for the workers: the grimy Orekhovo men who occupied seats at the team’s home stadium were very different from the handsome gentlemen who attended football “parties” in the capitals. But the liberal owners of the Nikolskaya Manufactory preferred to look for players on the side, even placing an advertisement in the English newspaper The Times that the company needed workers who could play football well. By the way, the foreigners who arrived were enough for two teams. But Russian workers began to “get infected” with football quite quickly and over time began to make their way into teams.

In the summer, many players went to their dachas, where they continued playing football, from time to time making trips to other dacha areas: Bykovo - to Tarasovka, or Losiny Ostrov - to Mamontovka. There were often not enough players, and the football players looked for strong guys from local villagers, artisans and workers. Summer was ending, the summer residents were leaving, and the locals, who had gained experience, taught their other fellow countrymen to the new game, many of whom then went to work in the cities.

Call of the People

Over the years, football has become more and more widespread and popular. Intercity and international friendly matches took place in Russia. They played not only on large football fields, of which more and more were opening in the two capitals, but also in the courtyards of educational institutions and near factory walls.

“Young” football was a tough sport. “The game went off without any misunderstandings, which happens extremely rarely at football matches,”- wrote one of the reporters of that time. There were fights between rivals, between spectators and players, beatings of referees, attacks on football players outside the football fields. The relationship between the representatives of the working class who were included in the official teams and the nobles who formed the basis of the clubs can be judged by the fact that on the agenda of the founding meeting of the Moscow Football League, held on June 12, 1910 in the Hermitage restaurant, one of the items touched upon moral issues in football. “Teams can bring together people from different classes - rich and poor, nobles and burghers, business owners and workers, intellectuals and commoners. But when coming to training or a game, everyone should forget about their origins. Forget sincerely, with all your soul, so that it does not manifest itself in small things, in tone, in the manner of speaking,”- Mikhail Sushkov, a famous Moscow football player who was present at that evening, recalls the decision of IFL functionaries.

Match "Morozovtsy" - "British" August 26, 1912

Nevertheless, the bourgeoisie and the nobility continued to jealously guard football as “their” game. It was even proposed to consider the few working-class football players, as more physically developed, as professionals and on this basis to prohibit them from playing in the formally amateur Moscow and St. Petersburg leagues. Meanwhile, an alternative movement of “wild” teams blossomed in the cities.

“In the working-class neighborhoods of the city outskirts, there have long been many football clubs, which included workers, employees, students, who were unable to pay the rather high membership and entry fees provided for by the charters of registered clubs, to purchase expensive sports uniforms and equipment, and who did not have influential acquaintances who could give recommendations necessary for entry,”- Andrey Savin writes in the book “Football Moscow: People. Events. Data".

The “wild” occupied vacant lots, constructing barbells from sticks or crumpled caps. Instead of soccer balls ordered from Europe, rags stuffed with paper were used; sometimes the balls were made of leather; in this case, the role of the camera was played by a bull's bladder. The legendary Soviet football player and coach Andrei Starostin recalled that he himself began to play on the Khodynskoe field, which was one of the centers of Moscow “informal” football. “All the “stars” of the early generations of our football went through the school of education in “wild” football,”- the player wrote in his book “Flagman of Football”.

Gradually, permanent “wild” teams were formed, with their own form, their own history, their own “stars”. Teams were formed mainly on territorial and professional grounds. Just look at the name of the strongest Moscow team in 1912 - “House No. 44”! The names were invented without the pathos and officialdom of the “big” colleagues. For example, in Kharkov there was a football team “Tsap-Tsarap”.

The politicization of these amateur associations is an unexplored issue. Researchers usually emphasize the apoliticality and heterogeneity of “wild” teams. But how apolitical could their participants have been in the period between the revolution of 1905 and the strikes of 1910–1912? Class antagonism was felt even in the context of street play. Anyone who claims that football was specifically instilled in the proletariat in order to distract them from politics and the fight for their rights should keep a couple of points in mind. Illegal games on makeshift fields were more than once dispersed by the police, who were wary of any meetings of proletarians outside working hours, and representatives of official clubs from the upper strata of society tried to put a spoke in the wheels of the “savages”, in every possible way hindering their development. Referees were prohibited from refereeing plebeian games, and league membership and entry fees were constantly inflated in order to prevent representatives of the new wave from entering their society.

"Chesnokovites"

But there were enthusiasts who were ready to invest their energy in the development of workers’ football. In 1912, the Zamoskvoretsk League of “wild” teams appeared in Moscow. It was organized by Judge Allenov, and the events of the championship were regularly covered by the printed publication “K Sportu”, thanks to the player and chronicler Boris Chesnokov who worked there. His brief biography is presented in the excellent book by American sports historian Robert Edelman, “Moscow Spartak. The story of a people's team in a country of workers."

Chesnokov was born into the family of a railway employee. As a child, he and his family often moved from city to city because of his father’s work. Boris was fond of various sports and at a very young age, as a student at the Moscow 4th gymnasium, he first tried himself on the football field. Having fallen in love with the game with all his heart, he continued to play with friends in the yard, and later on fields cleared and equipped on his own. Boris and his two brothers - Ivan and Sergei - organized meetings of amateur work teams, subsequently formalizing the emerging society into the Rogozhsky Sports Circle (RSC). This is how the first workers' sports club in Russia appeared.

It existed until 1915 and was dispersed by the police. Having destroyed the community, the repressive authorities were unable to destroy the passion for the game, which embraced ever larger circles of workers. And Chesnokov did not give up, continuing to support workers’ football. In 1916, he became chairman of the citywide Moscow Football League of “wild” teams. Working in the editorial office of the K Sportu magazine, he not only covered news from the fields of unrecognized championships, but also addressed the official football structures of Moscow, urging them to take a step towards the “wild ones”. Thanks to his contacts, Chesnokov brought the main RKS players into the Novogireevo football club, including himself. After that, the club became the city champion twice, moreover, the first champion to play without foreign players. Even the formidable Morozovites remained behind them. In 1917, Boris Chesnokov suffered a leg injury and was forced to end his football career. He continued to write his sports notes and eventually became the first sports columnist for the Pravda newspaper.

Football team of the city of Pereslavl-Zalessky. 1913

As can be seen from the chronology, neither during the First World War, nor during the days of the revolution and the Civil War in Russia did they stop playing football. But time has left its mark. In 1914, all German players of Russian teams (at that time the Russian championship was already being held) were exiled to the Vyatka province under martial law. The English masters soon also preferred to return to their homeland, but this could not in any way affect the popularity of the game. The matches of the national team stopped and were replaced by games between soldiers and prisoners of war.

In the first post-revolutionary months, there was a real “boom” of “wild” football. Unprecedented opportunities opened up for players who once kicked homemade rag balls, and many of them became famous football players in the future. Since 1918, teams began to appear in the Moscow Football League whose participation in the championship during the Tsarist years was simply impossible, for example, the Jewish sports club Maccabi. Football survived the ruins of the empire, still standing on the shoulders of enthusiasts. But there were still about 10 years left before it was fully accepted by the new Soviet government.

How was football played in Russia before Spartak, CSKA, Dynamo and Zenit? Fun and enthusiastic. Thus, at the Olympic Games in Stockholm, the Russian Empire team lost to the German team 0 - 16. This is still the largest victory for German football players in history. But the Russians had beautiful names for football teams, in which many foreign players from England played.

Sport

The first Russian football club was founded by the children of summer residents. The ebullient energy of youth became the reason for the emergence of the “Society of Running Lovers”. Summer residents-runners conducted athletics classes on the tracks of the Tsarskoye Selo hippodrome. All this splendor was called “Tyarlevsky Derby”. The main organizer was Pyotr Moskvin. A good start is half the battle. The athletes moved from the dusty dacha paths to St. Petersburg and practiced athletics on Petrovsky Island. From that time on, they began to be called the “Petrovsky Society of Running Enthusiasts.” In 1890, the circle held its first joint running competitions with the British Strela club, which was located on Krestovsky Island. In 1896, the club was officially registered under the name “St. Petersburg Circle of Sports Lovers” (abbreviated as KLS, or simply “Sport”). It was the British who instilled a passion for football in the athletics community. The "Sport" team became champions of the city more than once and even became the record holder for the number of international meetings in pre-revolutionary football, which it began to hold in 1907, including with Corinthians (Prague, Czech Republic) in 1910 (0:6) , with the national team of Leipzig (1:4) and Budapest (3:2) in 1913, with the Civil Service club (Edinburgh, Scotland) in May 1914 (0:3). From the mid-1900s, strong players began to appear on the team not only from Russian clubs, but also from other countries (England, Denmark, Finland; among them H. Morville, a player of the Danish national team at Olympic Games-12, Finn B. Wiberg, also a participant OI-12).

"Shiryaevo field"

The spread of football in Moscow began in 1895 with amateur matches of English workers on the territory of the Gopper plant. A year later, the British, working at various enterprises in Moscow, united by football fan R.F. Fulda, created a commission at the Moscow Hygiene Society for the organization of outdoor games. The activities of the commission bore fruit, a football field was equipped and the first football club in Moscow, “Sokolniki” or “Shiryaevo Pole,” was formed. The first games were of an amateur nature, the “teams” were called “parties”, but more and more people began to learn about the games on Shiryaev Field. There was even a game between the Russians and the British, in which the British confidently won. "Party" Sokolnikov "learned the lesson of that game, they began to actively train and twice became third in the most prestigious football tournament of that time - the Fulda Cup. After the disbandment of the team, some of its players moved to the Dynamo team formed in 1923. At first, the Dynamo even played in FCC uniforms (white T-shirts with a black collar and black shorts).

Zamoskvoretsky Sports Club

The Zamoskvoretsky Sports Club was created in 1909 by a weaver, the Englishman Benz. Another Russian football club created by the British was based on Kuznetskaya Street in Zamoskvorechye. The team consisted of six Russian football players and five Englishmen. In 1910, the club received a new sports ground on Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya Street, opposite Neskuchny Garden. For that time, such a site, with locker rooms, benches, fences, and artificial turf, was a real gift for both athletes and football fans. The fact was that football, which not so long ago was considered an amateur pastime for overgrown boys, had finally risen to its feet. On December 3, 1911, the first issue of the magazine “To Sport” was published in Moscow, where one interesting confession was made: “Of all the sports in Moscow, the most widespread is currently football. Just 3-4 years ago there were only a few dozen football players , now the number of players probably exceeds a thousand." Thus, all conditions for training and development were created for the Zamoskvoretsky Sports Club. The club justified them. He won the Fulda Cup twice.

"Nevka"

The first football tournament of the St. Petersburg Football League took place in 1901. It was held on the initiative of John Richardson, one of the founders of the Nevsky Cricket, Football and Tennis Club. English entrepreneur Thomas Aspden established a special challenge prize. Subsequently, it began to be called the “autumn cup.” Legally, this tournament was not yet a League Cup, but 1901 is considered to be the year of its birth. It is significant that in the first Russian football championship the English and Scottish teams fought for the championship. The older and more experienced Scots led the score for a long time, but the result turned out to be a draw - 2:2. Without losing a single match and ultimately gaining 6 points out of 8, the Scots team “Nevka”, led by captain D. Hargreaves, became the first champion of St. Petersburg.

Merkur

The Merkur football club was founded in St. Petersburg in 1906. The team united amateur athletes. The club repeatedly became the champion of St. Petersburg. Merkur players were part of the city team and took part in the second game against Moscow, which took place on September 29, 1907 in St. Petersburg. At that time they didn’t say “team cities”; the confrontation was “city against city”. Today it is interesting to read notes about that match. “By the beginning of the game, the Muscovites had only ten players: one of them got lost and did not immediately find the field on which the game was taking place. They were waiting for him, but in the end, due to the hasty departure of the Muscovites, they started without him. The Petersburgers played the first half of the game with the wind... All the chances of winning are now in the hands of the “Muscovites”, and no one expects “St. Petersburg” to win, since there are only 15 minutes left until the end of the game. But then something incredible happens. in a few minutes, score three goals one after another, deciding the game in their favor. After the third goal, the “Moscow” defense was so confused that the “St. Petersburg” forwards freely circled it and successfully scored the last two goals. “Moscow’s” backs and forwards worked well. , especially Nash, who repeatedly carried the ball all the way to the “behind line” (goal line); the “St. Petersburgers” had good Grigoriev, Danker, Egorov and both backs.”

Kolomyagi

Football club "Kolomyagi" was founded in St. Petersburg in 1904. This was one of the most honored and famous football clubs. Its players repeatedly won the city championship and played in the St. Petersburg national team. Kolomyaga players were also part of the Russian national team that took part in the 1912 Olympic Games. The unplayed team, in which there was strong competition between Moscow and St. Petersburg, played extremely poorly, losing in the consolation tournament match to the Germans with a score of 0:16. However, it is not worth judging individual players in such a game. Football in Russia was just beginning and it is still unknown how its development would have gone if there had not been a revolution, when there was “no time for sports”...

Football was brought to our country by the British along with the Blackburn Rovers uniform.

RIA Novosti visited the town of Orekhovo-Zuevo near Moscow and learned how the club’s football players fight in the Professional Football League, not forgetting their British roots.

A separate village was built for the British

Football came to Russia at the end of the 19th century. It is generally accepted that the first official game took place in St. Petersburg, but this is not entirely true. It is true that in 1897 there was a match in which the “Sport” team lost to the “Vasileostrovsky Society of Football Players” with a score of 0:6. But 10 years before that, in Orekhovo near Moscow (the unification with the village of Zuevo will take place after the October Revolution in 1917) they were already playing. The British, who were workers in the manufactory of a major philanthropist, brought a new entertainment for the local residents.

In order to learn more about the history of the oldest club, I went to the local history museum in Orekhovo-Zuevo itself, where workers explained how an entire English quarter appeared a hundred kilometers from Moscow.

“In 1840, England lifted the embargo on the use of textile equipment,” says guide Olga Krasnova. “Savva Vasilyevich Morozov, the founder of a great dynasty of merchants and philanthropists, invited Ludwig Knop to his new factory, who equipped the factory with English equipment. Specialists arrived with this equipment. from England, who brought an interesting and unknown game."

English specialists lived in comfort, with all the amenities and behind high fences. A village was built for them, which was popularly called “English”. The houses stood for a very long time; the last one, according to Krasnova’s recollections, burned down in 2006. There was a tuberculosis center there.

The British gradually began to form teams, to which first only their own, and then local Russian workers were invited. By the way, the Old Believers did not take the game seriously: football was something unusual for them, but over time, public opinion changed.

Through the efforts of the Charnok brothers, the first professional football team was created in 1909 - the Orekhovo Sports Club. Harry Charnock, who in the Russian manner always introduced himself as Andrei Vasilyevich and headed a small Morozov factory, became chairman and then president of the new team, his brother Clement was on the committee of the Moscow football league.

The Znamya Truda stadium, like the football club, is the oldest currently operating in the country. It was here that the current general director of the club, Igor Mayorov, brought me.

“There were wooden stands, a wooden dressing room. On the eastern stand there was such a symbolic cannon, and it shot blue ribbons. The priest read a prayer service, and the stadium was opened,” says Mayorov, to the sound of a hammer and a drill. The fact is that the arena is currently undergoing reconstruction.

Construction of the first stadium in Tsarist Russia began after 1912. The opening took place two years later: on April 7, 1914, the Orekhov team hosted the student team of the University of London.

- Do I understand correctly that the blue ribbons from that cannon were in honor of Blackburn Rovers? - I ask.

Yes,” Mayorov answers. - Employees were invited from there, that’s why there were these colors.

- Now the team plays some home matches in blue colors?

Harry and Clement Charnock were fans of this particular English club. Blue T-shirts were issued from Britain. However, the shorts were ordered to be sewn by the players themselves. True, no one indicated what size they should be. Some players took to the field in shorts almost reaching their ankles.

One of the first foreign players in Russian football wanted to overthrow the Soviet regime

The British were here more than 100 years ago. Now, if Znamya Truda wants to acquire foreign players, according to the PFL regulations, this will not be possible. But in the summer, the founders of football could still be here: the oldest existing club in the world, the English Sheffield, was organizing a tour in Russia.

Initially, the Orekhovo-Zuev team was one of the participants in the mini-tournament, the general director even agreed with the hotel and allocated a bus for the history brothers, but at the last moment “Sheffield” stopped communicating and preferred to play the game with an amateur team in Ramenskoye.

Continuing the conversation about connections with Blackburn, Mayorov said that he would not mind finding contact with the management of Rovers. Later I made a request to the British club. You never know, they could have added some other interesting fact to the history of the emergence of football in Russia, but I never received an answer.

A week after my visit to Orekhovo-Zuevo, I contacted Sergei Bondar, a former football player and coach of Znamya Truda, now he works as the sports director of the FNL. According to the players' stories, Bondar is an expert on the history of Orekhovsk football.

“This is an industrial region, where teams appeared in every factory. Even the Communist Party had its own team. There was a team “Groza”, which, under the pretext of playing football, held its meetings. This caused concern among the authorities. That is, we know both 1905 and The Morozov strike happened a little earlier. People were not very willing to play because (there was) a massive crowd of people,” Bondar shared the story.

In addition to the communist team, an English spy also played in Orekhovo. Robert Lockhart was considered one of the best CSR players. True, a year later, when the First World War began, many British either left for their homeland or went to the front. Lockhart remained, and it later turned out that he had prepared a conspiracy against Soviet power, uncovered in August 1918 by the Cheka.

“Lockhart is a military attaché who played in Orekhovo-Zuevo. He was a fairly good football player. Robert was the brother of a football player on the England team that won the Olympic Games (1912 - ed.), so he used this surname,” said Sergei. “At the same time, he was an intelligence officer. He collected information. These were the first legionnaires in Russia (laughs). Subsequently, he was one of the most important participants in the diplomatic conspiracy.”

“I wanted to kill Lenin and establish a dictatorship in Moscow. Such a serious event (laughs). I later wrote in my memoirs,” the ex-coach added.

Football players live in the stadium - and that’s good

Despite the low attendance of Znamya Truda in the PFL (about 300-400 people per match), the club has a fan movement. One of the founders of the Assembly of Workers, Pavel Korolev, explained who supports the team.

We have such a movement of the working class, as it should be for the Banner of Labor. People are aged, have families and mostly from working niches. Yes, there are no sold-out crowds of 30,000 people here, but there is also its own romance. And I’ve also been a fan of Lokomotiv since childhood, but at some point I realized that it’s even more interesting for myself here. And the football boys fight on the field, they don’t get millions, he thought.

- Tell me, are your performances somehow connected with the history of the club?

It hasn't come to that yet. The movement is not that big, there aren’t that many participants. Here you can’t even always go on trips, you have to rent a bus, but it’s still costly.

- Do you have a banner with the English flag and the club emblem?

There are British roots, of course, with Blackburn. We want to realize this too, maybe start some kind of friendship.

This season Znamya Truda is playing at the reserve Torpedo stadium. The general director's office is located there, the accounting department is located and... the football players live. Small rooms for two and four people.

“Football players live in the stadium, and that’s good. There are cars where they can wash, there is a canteen where they are fed. This is not the worst option. You can play and achieve results,” says head coach Anatolie Certoaca.

The coach himself lives separately in a hotel, but the players have no questions about their living conditions. All points are discussed before signing the contract. “When they came, they agreed to these conditions, they knew everything. Before inviting them, I explain everything to them: what kind of food there will be, what the salary will be. Three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. An agreement was signed with the canteen near the station, we go there,” added Certoaca.

With us they received 19 thousand, there they offered 70

The issue of money in the second league is acute. Players get no more than supermarket clerks, and some get less. But the general manager and coach are against the players working part-time after training.

I will react negatively to this, I’ll be honest,” the coach answers the question about additional income for the players. - First of all, he is a football player. This is a professional club. I also have one job and he has one. He must give himself completely to her. It will be scattered, there can be no conversation about it. You need to develop yourself, and please, they will call you to another club, and the salary there will be higher.

- What place does Znamya Truda occupy in the PFL in terms of salaries?

I will probably not be mistaken if I say that the first place is from the end. The guys who played last year were noticed (by other clubs). We paid attention to the team, and then began to invite them individually.

- The players didn’t ask to let them go?

I understand them. They came up to me: “Vasilich, we are happy with everything here, but if the salary was a little more... We would stay.” They didn’t mention exorbitant prices, that’s what they were talking about. If they received 19 thousand from us, they were offered 70. Is there a difference? One received 26 from us, and they offered him 50. There is a two-fold difference, they went there, and that’s it. There was no way we could hold them back.

Goalkeeper and team captain Vitaly Chilyushkin is one of those who earn money outside the club. He is a coach at a children's school.

- Where can a second league football player go on vacation?

It depends on the player whether he has a family and children. It's hard to put something aside. And if a young man lives at the base, we also have food here. You can save almost your entire salary. My family and I are flying to Turkey in November for the third year in a row. Türkiye in November and Türkiye in summer are completely different price categories.

- If there is enough for Turkey, that’s already good.

And this despite the fact that my wife works.

- Sorry for asking, which of you earns more?

- (Laughs) My wife, by the way, earns good money for Orekhovo-Zuevo, but since I have two jobs, I still get more.

“On the right there were living football players, on the right there were dead ones. They were all smiling.”

On May 27, 2004, Znamya Truda went to the next championship game (then the team played in the amateur league - ed.). We had to go to the town of Shchelkovo near Moscow, where the match was supposed to start at 17:00. Around 3:00 p.m., the team bus was involved in an accident, killing nine players and club staff.

Bus FC "Znamya Truda". Archive photo

The road at the accident site has now been widened, so there is no memorial plaque left there. The city has a monument - a soccer ball and a temple in memory of the fallen football players.

"The guys played here, and such a terrible tragedy happened. They were buried right here (from the stadium). There were nine coffins here. Then they were taken to cemeteries. The memory should be here. There is no need to bring people to the track, where there will be another accident. Previously We were leaving, the bus was standing on the road,” Mayorov said.

Andrei Shagarov, one of the survivors of that terrible accident, agreed to tell me about what happened 15 years ago. Now he works as a coach at a children's school in Kurovskoye (Orekhovo-Zuevo). He is also interested in painting and paints in his free time.

On May 27, on a sunny day, we were leaving on the Pazik. You know, I'll tell you this - God exists. He ordered that someone be taken away and someone left alive. Dimka Svitavsky, a Tambov boy (then 21 years old), now he is disabled. He suffered nine brain hemorrhages after the accident. The day before the accident, they called him back to “Tambov”, I told him: “Of course, we have to go, they are interested in you, what should you do here.” Days passed, he went with us on the bus. Pashka Sukhov, the late team captain. He was offered to go in the car to the game, but he refused - I would sit with the team.

According to the official version, a container ship with a cargo of chemicals was moving towards Nizhny Novgorod, and a football team bus was driving towards them. One of the road users cut off the truck, after which the truck ended up in the oncoming lane, where it collided with the bus.

The history of Russian club football is diverse. Many of today's fans probably think that football in our country began with Spartak, Dynamo, or, in extreme cases, Lokomotiv. In fact, of the famous current clubs, only CSKA has the right to be considered a team that can truly be called the oldest. And the patriarchs of Russian football were completely different glorious clubs, which many have not even heard of now.

5 FC Znamya (Noginsk) – founded in 1911

In 1911, the city of Noginsk was called Bogorodsk. It was here that one of the first real football fields in the country was built. The first district football team of the Glukhov manufactory was also created here. The sports team represented the small village of Glukhovo, which later became one of the microdistricts of the city of Noginsk near Moscow.

The club reached relatively high achievements only in 1936. Already under the proud name “Red Banner”, the team took part in the historic first USSR Cup and even reached the semi-finals, but at this stage they lost heavily to Dynamo Tbilisi with a score of 1:5. Subsequently, the club played in the lower divisions.

The best achievement of those years was second place in the second zone of class “B”, which was taken in 1959.

In the early nineties of the last century, Viktor Laptev, a man who really loved football, became the mayor of Noginsk. On his initiative, the club was recreated under the name “Avtomobilist”, since the team was financially supported by the Moscow region enterprise Mostransavto. At first the club participated in the KFC competitions, but already in 1993 it won the national championship among amateur clubs and, having received professional status, began to participate in the championship of the third league of Russian football.

Avtomobilist’s highest achievement, like its predecessors, also came in the Cup, now in Russia. In 1997, the team reached the 1/16 finals, where Oleg Romantsev’s Moscow Spartak was waiting for them. It was no longer possible to win here, but the cup match in Noginsk remained in history not by the score, but by the massacre at the stadium between the local riot police and Spartak fans because of an explosive package thrown onto the field. The law enforcement officers won, completely (!) clearing the guest stand in a few minutes.

In 1998, the club from Noginsk already won the second division championship and even played in the play-offs for promotion to the first league, but lost to Spartak-Chukotka on aggregate in two meetings.

After some time, due to financial problems, the club was deprived of its professional status and played at the regional level. In 2010, it was given the final historical name “Znamya”, and in 2011, in the year of the centenary of its formation, it was entered into the Russian Championship in the 3rd Amateur League, where “Znamya” still plays. By the way, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Alexander Samedov play for the club at the amateur level.

4 PFC CSKA – founded in 1911

The history of this club also began in 1911. A football section was organized in the society of ski (!) sports lovers. And in the first match, the “OLLS” team defeated their opponents with a score of 6:2 in the Moscow championship. In 1923, specialized teams from various departments began to be created in a socialist country. The team was named “OPPV” - Experimental Demonstration Site of Vsevobuch, which was supervised by the Red Army.

In 1928, the Central House of the Red Army was opened in the capital, where the command was transferred, renamed CDKA. Back then we played mainly for the Moscow championship.

In 1936, the team took part in the first Russian championship, but did not lose their laurels. But in the post-war years, the club became one of the leaders of the championships, competing with Dynamo. The “Team of Lieutenants” began to be called CDSA, since the Red Army was renamed the Soviet Army.

There was also a completely black page in the team’s history. In 1952, on the basis of the team, it was decided to create the country's Olympic team. At the Olympic tournament, the army team lost to the Yugoslav team in the 1/8 finals. Since the USSR had almost hostile relations with Yugoslavia at that time, the defeat was considered political and the team was disbanded. Parting with football lasted 2 years.

Later, in the Union and Russian championships, the club, under its current name, performed differently. There were periods of championship, and three times the team had to drop down to the first league.

The fans especially remembered the 1998 season. The army team started the tournament extremely poorly, suffering several defeats in a row. At least they appointed a young coach, Oleg Dolmatov, to save the team from another relegation. Under his leadership, the football team put together an impressive unbeaten streak and finished the season in 2nd place.

Since then, the team has been led by many talented mentors. Under the leadership of Valery Gazzaev, the army team even won the UEFA Cup. In total, this legendary football club has 13 championship victories and 12 in the Cup.

3 FC "Znamya Truda" (Orekhovo-Zuevo) - founded in 1909

One of the oldest clubs in the country. It was founded in 1909 under the name Orekhovo Sports Club by English factory workers. He was a repeated champion of pre-revolutionary Moscow.

The team’s highest achievement already in Soviet times was reaching the Cup final, where the Orekhov team lost to Shakhtar Donetsk in 1962. Since then, Znamya Truda has remained the only finalist of the National Cup that has never played in the major league.

For some time the team played at the amateur level, periodically moving to the PFL level. However, the club has not yet achieved high achievements even at this level.

2 FC Chernomorets (Novorossiysk) – founded in 1907

The club was founded in 1907. Now he plays in the second division in the “South” zone with varying success, but there were times in the history of the team that were much more successful. Playing in the major league in 2000, the club took 6th place in the championship and received the right to play in the UEFA Cup.

There was no luck with the draw - the Novorossians got the Spanish "Valencia" as their opponents. The result was predictable - 0:1 in the home match and 0:5 away.

Before the collapse of the USSR, the team played in the second league, but in the Russian championship it moved to the first.

From here, Chernomorets twice reached the top division, but could not stay there, eventually dropping even to the second league.

1 FC Kolomna – founded in 1906

The oldest existing Russian club. It was founded in 1906 at a local machine-building plant called “KGO”, which meant: Kolomna Gymnastics Society. A year later, the team held its first international match with football players from the British Sports Union and, by the way, won with a score of 3:1. In 1923, the club participated in the symbolic USSR Championship at the All-Union Physical Culture Festival in Moscow and won honorary bronze medals there.

FC Kolomna is recognized as the very first football team in Russia.

In the Russian and Union football championships, the club did not rise above the second league.

Table of RPL clubs by seniority - from oldest to newest

Club name	Year of foundation
CSKA	August 27, 1911
Spartak Moscow)	April 18, 1922
Dynamo (Moscow)	April 18, 1923
Lokomotiv (Moscow)	July 23, 1922
Zenit (St. Petersburg)	May 25, 1925
FC Rostov (Rostov-on-Don)	May 10, 1930
FC Ural	1930
Wings of the Soviets (Samara)	April 12, 1942
Akhmat (Grozny)	1946
Arsenal Tula	1946
Rubin Kazan)	April 20, 1958
FC "Orenburg"	January 1, 1976
FC Krasnodar	February 22, 2008
Ufa	February 18, 2009
Tambov	2013
PFC Sochi	July 4, 2018