The Death Match
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The death match was a non-official match between Soviet POW's - former professional soccer players (mostly from Dinamo Kiev) - and soldiers of Nazi Germany wehrmacht. The professional players won and, according to the popular culture legend, were all executed for this.
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[edit] Background
Soccer had become highly popular in Soviet Union, and particularly in Ukraine in the 1930's. Ukraine's strongest team of this time was Dynamo Kyiv, part of the Dinamo sports society that was funded by the trade unions, the police and the Red Army. In Soviet Russia, soccer was a state-sponsored activity. In 1938 Dinamo Kiev came in fourth in the national league, scoring seventy-six goals, but then came a dip in their fortunes as they performed poorly in 1939 and 1940.
The 1941 season was never completed, as Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22nd June 1941. Several Dinamo Kiev players joined the military and went off to fight. As the Germans approached Kiev, the others who had stayed behind helped out with civil defence in the city. Initial success of wehrmacht allowed it to capture Kiev, one of the Soviet Union's major cities, from the Red Army. Several of the Dinamo Kiev players who had survived the onslaught found themselves prisoners of war in concentration camps.
[edit] FC Start
It was at Kiev's Bakery Number 3 that the players eventually gathered to look for work in occupied Kiev. It all started when Nikolai Trusevich, Dynamo's goalkeeper returned to the city. Trusevich, was given a job as a sweeper in the bakery by Iosif Kordik, a Dynamo fan. Kordik was the bakery's new manager, who held his privileged position there because of his German origins. Kordik, a sports enthusiast, then hit on the idea of setting up a bakery football team and, in the spring of 1942, Trusevich began a search over Kiev, looking for former team mates. His first find was the tricky winger Makar Goncharenko. Goncharenko remembers the invitation:
Kolya came to me at Kreschatick Street where I was living illegally at my former mother-in-law's house. He came to me to have a chat about this idea and to find some of the other boys. We got in touch with Kuzmenko (striker) and Sviridovsky and they contacted some of the others.
Makar Goncharenko
Over the next few weeks, players from Dynamo as well as from the former Lokomotiv Kiev and CDKA teams, completed a club they called FC Start (Football Club Start). On June 7th 1942, FC Start played its first game in the local league. The league was run by a Quisling Georgi Shvetsov, a former footballer and sports instructor and Start's first opponents were Rukh, Shvetsov's pet team. FC Start won 7-2, despite being poorly fed and equipped.[citations needed]
During 1942, FC Start played several matches with teams of soldiers of occupying garrisons, and won them all:
| Date | Opponent | Score (FC Start bolded) |
|---|---|---|
| June 21 | Hungarian garrison | 6:2 |
| July 5 | Romanian garrison | 11:0 |
| July 12 | Military railroad workers team | 9:1 |
| July 17 | PGS (Germany) | 6:0 |
| July 19 | MSG.Wal (Hungary) | 5:1 |
| July 21 | MSG.Wal (Hungary) | 3:2 |
| August 6 | Flakelf (Germany) | 5:1 |
The German administration grew aware that FC Start victories might inspire Ukrainian inhabitants and decrease the morale of Axis troops.
[edit] The match
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The German team asked for a re-match, which was planned on August 9 at Zenit stadium. An SS officer was appointed as referee, and FC Start were aware he would be biased against them. Some visitors anonymously warned of possible punishment they did not give the game up to the Germans.[citations needed] Despite this, the team decided to play as always. They refused to give a nazi salute to their opponents before the match.
Just as the the FC Start players expected, the Nazi referee ignored Flakelf fouls. The German team quickly targeted the goalkeeper Trusevich who, after a sustained campaign of physical challenges, was kicked in the head by a Flakelf forward and left groggy. While Trusevich was recovering, Flakelf went one goal up.
The referee continued to ignore FC Start appeals against their opponents' violence. The Flakelf team went on with their war of intimidation using all the tactics of a dirty team, going for the man not the ball, shirt-holding, and tackling from behind, as well as going over the ball. Despite this FC Start scored with a long shot from a free kick by Kuzmenko. Then Goncharenko, against the run of play, dribbled the ball around almost the entire Flakelf defence and tapped it into in the German net to make the score 2-1. By half-time, FC Start were yet another goal up.
The second half was almost an anti-climax. Each side scored twice. Towards the end of the match, with FC Start in an almost unbeatable position at 5-3, Klimenko, a defender, got the ball, beat the entire German rearguard and walked around the German goalkeeper. Then, instead of letting it cross the goal line, he turned around and kicked the ball back towards the centre circle. The SS referee blew the final whistle before the ninety minutes were up.
The story inspired two films: 1961 Hungarian film drama "Két félidő a pokolban" and 1981 American film Escape to Victory.
[edit] Aftermath
A week later, August 16th, Start won over Rukh again, 8:0. Soon after that, all FC Start members were arrested, allegedly for being NKVD members (as Dinamo was a police-funded club). They were sent to the Siretz labour camp, where five of them were executed. The few survivors included Tutchev, Sviridovsky and Goncharenko, who are responsible for the popularisation of this story in Soviet popular culture.
[edit] Popularisation
First mentioned in Izvestiya in November 16, 1943, the newspaper reported the execution of famous sportsmen by the Germans, though it didn't mention the match itself.
The "Death Match" came to public attention in 1958, after Petro Severov published the article "The Last Duel" in the "Evening Kiev" newspaper. The following year Severov, together with Naum Khalemsky, published a book with the same name, that told the story of FC Start and its struggle against the Nazi occupiers. Memoirs by Goncharenko followed.
The story became widely popular in the Soviet Union, especially in Ukraine, and was romanticized. Two movies - "Third Time" (Mosfilm, 1964) and "The Match of Death" were filmed, based on this story. A sculpture composition was erected in Kiev in Zenit stadium, which was renamed to Start stadium (Kiev) in 1981.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Andy Dougan 2002, Dynamo: Defending the Honour of Kiev, Fourth Estate, London
- Sheila Fitzpatrick 1999, Everyday Stalinism, OUP, Oxford
- Eduardo Galeano 1997, Football in Sun and in Shadow, Fourth Estate, London
- John Keegan 1989, The Second World War, Pimlico, London
- Aino Kuusinen 1974, Before and After Stalin, Joseph, London
- Richard Overy 1997, Russia's War, Allen Lane, London
