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| Russian soccer was born in 1897:
now a million amateurs play game

MOSCOW

Russian football is generally considered to have been born in 1897, when an amateur

team got going in St. Petersburg (now Leningrad).

mainly from Britons.

British players joined Rus-
there
completely British teams play-

Sian teams; and were

ing in the Moscow League.

By 1914 football was wide-
Spread throughout the country,
all the way to Vladivostock.
The first knockout
_Championship was held in 1912
(St. Petersburg beat Moscow
Gal); :

national

That same year Russia join-
ed the federa-
tion, and greatly daring, sent
a team (knocked out in ‘heir
first game) to the Stockholm

international

Olympics.

Football improved in both
quantity and quality after the
revolution. Stadiums ~ were
Provided in large numbers and
Clubs grew up with great
rapidity.

The League really establish-
€d itself as a club champion-
Ship in 1935. By that time the
level of play was really re-

- Spectable.

The outstanding men of that
time—left winger Sergei Hyin
(Moscow), inside-right Pyotr
Dementyev (Leningrad), cen-
tre-forward Boris Paichadze
(Tbilisi), inside-right Vasily
Smirnov (Moscow) — could
€ven now serve as models.

They would have progressed
a lot faster if it hadn’t been
for old-fashioned tactics — the
“five in a line” instead of the
“W” formation for forwards
is an example. It took several
_years (and some hard lessons

from a number of foreign
teams) before Soviet football |
tactics were brought up to
date,

_ The Cup was also introduced
In 1936.

Today there are a dozen
teams in Division A of the
League. They each play every
Other team twice during the
Season. Points’ allocaiion ‘is
the same as in the British
League. The bottom team is
Telegated to Division B, while
he top Division B team gets
Promoted.

Every year since 1951, some
18,000 teams have contested
the Soviet football Cup. This
Bives some idea of the wide-
Spread interest in the game.

Over a million are now
Dlaying football in the Soviet
~nion — all amateurs, for the

USSR- has no professional
teams

Those first. players learned the game

Indeed: many Russian soccer terms have been lifted from the English
, ee ” ‘ ” Las ae: ” e .

language — “hands,” “penalty, ‘corner” and “offside,” for example.

There are now more than a million soccer players in the
Sovie’ Union, and calibre of play is extremely high.

This

photograph was taken when B.C. All-Stars played Moscow
Lokomotives at Empire Stadium before 20,000 fans. The visitors

won the game 5-2.

Shellacking by Royals

what Canucks needed

That 5-0 shellacking at the
hands of New Westminster
may be just what the doctor
ordered for
nucks.

In their first few games the
Canucks looked so good that
the prophets of disaster were
crying, “They’ll ruin the lea-
gue.” i

Comparisons were made with
the football Eskimos and the
baseball Yankees and a few
voices began bleating, “Break

them up!”
Royals injected a note of
sanity into the proceeding.

Viancouver Ca-.

Showing complete disdain for
the Canucks’ reputation, they
outplayed them all the way
and left the doleful losers
looking like a bunch of rank
amateurs.

Make no mistake about it,
the Canucks are good. Trouble
was they began thinking they
were unbeatable. Now that il-
lusion is gone and they’ll prob-
ably play better hockey from
here on.

This year’s Canucks are the
best team Vancouver has had
for many years.

_the association’s
application by a vote of 18-0.

Bert Why's

SPORTLIGHT

(Guest column by George Barr)

jagELL, THE proverbial cat
W certainly was skinned
several ways in the last two
weeks — on the professional
hockey front, that is. To bring
us up to date, the National
Hockey League magnates last
month officially decided not to
recognize the Players Associa-
tion, although at that time the
personnel of all the teams
were members in good stand-
ing.

(Under pressure, members
of the Detroit Red Wings with-
drew from the Players Asso-
ciation last week.)

To force the issue, the As-
sociation applied to the Na-
tional Labor Board in the
United States (four of the
teams operate under U.S. laws)
for certification and at the
same time decided to bring
suit against the league and its
officers under the anti-trust
regulations.

The $3,000,000 lawsuit pro_
voked the owners into anguish-
ed crying and gnashing of
teeth. To think that our own
players would do this to us,
was the general tone of the
complaints.

They then proceeded to try
to scare the younger players
into leaving the association,
using the “time-tested” meth-
ods of pressure and lies. We
won't go into all the gory de-
tails since it has all been done
before. To our knowledge, no

‘ company or boss has come out

with any original anti-labor
tactics-for at least 50 years,
and the NHL brass is no ex-
ception.

Naturally, this manoeuvring
backfired and only helped to
make the players madder and
consequently more militant in
their actions. The next step by
the slaves was to apply to the
Ontario Labor Board for certi-
fication on behalf of the Tor-
onto branch. This, of course,
sent Smythe and company
into a high dudgeon complete
with righteous indignation.

Although the players had
been criticized for hiring
“strangers” to represent them,
Conny Smythe called a meet-
ing of the Maple Leafs and
surrounded himself with bags
of legal talent. Obviously, his
lawyers were friendlier to the
players’ interests than their
own. To the everlasting credit
of the Leafs, “operation con-
fusion” didn’t faze them at
all and despite the obvious at-
tempts to.upset and split their
ranks, the players confirmed
certification

For a guy who refuses to
recognize the Players Associa-
tion, Conny Smythe certainly

goes out of his way to notice
it. Decidedly upset by the
unanimous feelings of his play-
ers, Smythe saw fit to speak at
great length a few days later
in his annual report to his
board of directors. Completely
distorting the issues, Smythe
proposed the establishment of
a committee “to oppose out-
side interference and direction
of our team by the Players
Association and take every
legal step possible so that we
can continue to operate our
own club under the laws of
this free enterprise country.”

President Lindsay and Vice-
president Harvey of the asso-
ciation, not to mention Treas-
urer Thompson, will no doubt
be pleasantly surprised to hear
that they have been trying to
run the-Toronto Maple Leafs.
We doubt very much if they
would want the job if it were
offered on a platter.

All they’re concerned with
is to play hockey to the best
of their ability, and that goes
for their 117 fellow members,
too, but they would like a
little more of the gold that
they help the owners to make.

Keep up the pressure boys,
you’ve got more support among
the fans than you realize, not
to mention the help you can

get from the trade -union
movement. Messrs. Smythe,
Norris and fellow  slave-

owners have bitten off a great
deal more than they’ll be able
to digest.
5 es $e wt

Some 12,586 Toronto hockey
fans took just one hour and
fifteen minutes to, snap up
every seat at Map’e Leaf Gar-
dens for the November 22
game between. Whitby Dun-
iops and the visiting Russian
team.

me

>% Maurice (Rocket) Richard
(above) is out of NHL
play for several weeks follow.
ing an injury in a _ recent
game. Until the accident hap-
pened, the Montreal veteran
hiad been aiming to set a new
scoring record this season.

November 22, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 11