A Tournament Frozen in Time: The Wonderful Randomness of the European Cup Winners Cup by Steven Scragg (Pitch Publishing 2019)

 

Dinamo Tbilisi will mean nothing to an entire generation of football watchers, yet to my generation they will elicit an enigmatic smile and maybe even a moistening of the eye. It might sound strange to the uninitiated, but you’d be amazed just how many British football supporters go misty-eyed with joy at the memory of seeing their team of choice being knocked out of European competition by what would colloquially be referred to as a ‘crack eastern European outfit’.

Of those great unknown sides to emerge from behind the Iron Curtain, Dinamo Tbilisi were one of the most clinical and unremitting. Fast and precise, they hit you on the break and they hit you hard. For those who saw them, they were unforgettable.

In the quarter-finals, at the beginning of March 1981, West Ham United were systematically dismantled by Dinamo Tbilisi at Upton Park.

Slicing straight through the West Ham midfield and defence time and time again, they enabled Aleksandre Chivadze, Vladimir Gutsaev and Ramaz Shengelia to score goals that were as beautiful as they were devastating. Ray Stewart, the West Ham right-back and penalty-taker extraordinaire was particularly tormented by the Dinamo Tbilisi offensive. He was caught in precarious possession of the ball for the second goal, when ludicrously left to man the West Ham defence all on his own.

What made the situation so ludicrous was that Stewart’s team-mates had piled forward, as if chasing a last-minute equaliser, when instead, the first leg of the game was only 31 minutes old. Everything was still to play for. 

West Ham had fallen a goal behind a mere seven minutes earlier and even by the standards of March 1981 this was an admirably gung-ho approach from John Lyall and his players.

One botched corner, a lofted Dinamo Tbilisi clearance, an ill-advised header from Stewart and a flash of the white-shirted Gutsaev later, and the ball was once again in the back of Phil Parkes’s net. It was as shocking as it was swift.

Football Dynamo: Modern Russia and the People’s Game by Marc Bennetts (Virgin Books 2008)

While the Soviet economy may have been falsified, its football, according to Utkin, was somewhat cleaner. 'In the Soviet era,’ he said, pausing to gaze at a group of model-type Russian girls giggling on the first floor of the restaurant, ‘the stakes in the game weren’t so big, and there wasn‘t really the material incentive to fix matches. Then, it was more of a political thing. Making sure that the Moscow teams did well, that the Ukrainians were kept happy with a cup or two, and so on. Anyway, that’s not really the main point. It’s difficult to compare the two. Soviet footballers weren’t paid anything like as much, and even if they did get some money there was nothing to spend it on. They played for honour, for their team, for the political or social structure it represented. Basically, comparing Soviet football and Russian football is like comparing a Dostoevsky novel and a modern-day bestseller. The first was created with love, out of the sheer pleasure of the act itself, the second is a commercial thing, with financial concerns behind it.

'Some people are on the pitch . . . '

. . . but it's OK, Craig Bellamy's 1500 miles away cuffing someone else.

Saturday's Moscow derby between FC Saturn and Spartak Moscow was enlivened by what can only be called a 'sucker punch goal' from a fan from the crowd who decided to interrupt his short cut jog to the bovril stand by walluping in a penalty straight down the middle. Sadly, the penalty had to be retaken as his mate in the tracksuit bottoms was encroaching inside the box when the ball was struck.

Make sure to watch the celebration afterwards 'cos on 29 seconds in the clip you'll have the shock of your footballing life: Paolo Di Canio has really let himself go since retiring from the professional game. Still got a decent left peg, though.

Hat tip to 'Barking Mad' over at Urban 75.