#11
The Sunday Times (UK)
14 October 2001
From Russia with love Dinamo Moscow
are no strangers to Ibrox - 56 years ago they fought an early Cold War battle
By
Douglas Alexander
THERE wasn't too much to whet the appetites of Glaswegians as the winter of 1945 set in. In the austere aftermath of the Second World War whale steaks or powdered eggs awaited them at mealtimes. Nevertheless, tens of thousands of lips were being licked in anticipation of a feast to come.
It was to be served at Ibrox at 2.15pm on Wednesday, November 28. On the menu was Rangers versus Dynamo Moscow. As different to the fare that Scottish supporters had previously seen as caviar is to porridge. In those days, internationals mostly meant games against the home nations, and the first European Cup was still 11 years off.
Dynamo were on the final leg of a British tour in which they had defeated Cardiff City 10-1, Arsenal 4-3 and drawn 3-3 with Chelsea. They were also on one of the first missions of the Cold War. In their hotels, a room was reserved with a direct line to Moscow where Uncle Joe Stalin and his deputies eagerly awaited news of how they were faring against the capitalists.
The driving force behind Dynamo was Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, chief of Stalin's secret police. To relax after his work, mainly purging and torturing, Beria had two hobbies. One was cruising through Moscow picking up adolescent girls. The other passion was less dark - football.
Like Stalin, Beria came from Georgia. He had played left-half for a team in Tblisi and never forgot the on-field humiliations he received from Nikolai Starostin, who became the star and founder of Spartak Moscow - Dynamo's deadly rivals. In 1942, Starostin was arrested on jumped-up charges of plotting to kill Stalin and taken to Lubyanka, the secret police HQ, for questioning.
He and his three brothers were cleared of the plot, but banished to Siberia for 10 years. It took the intervention of Stalin's son, Vassily, a Spartak fan, to bring them back to Moscow after three years in the gulags.
THE people of Scotland knew nothing of the dark forces behind Dynamo, however, and in the offices of the Evening News another hotline was buzzing, that belonging to a journalist named Hugh Taylor. Taylor had been invalided out of the army and was swamped with work due to staff shortages. Besides his work for The News, he was also providing coverage for The Daily Record.
"The phone rang every other minute," Taylor later recalled, "and it was the same request, invariably; half the country seemed to think I might have some influence in obtaining a ticket."
One request came from a former army sergeant-major of Taylor's. In the city centre, meanwhile, two-mile queues formed and supporters stood some 16 hours for tickets while others paid £20-£30 for them.
"The excitement aroused in Glasgow and Scotland by this game has not been equalled, not even by the European Cup visit of Real Madrid," John Fairgrieve, sports editor of the Scottish Daily Mail later wrote.
Among Taylor's callers was a tip-off from Paisley, informing him that an unnamed pub had a picture of the first Scottish footballers to play in Russia. Taylor licked his lips at the thought of researching this story. He had hoped it would be a long, laborious search but within 10 minutes, and few beverages, he found his quarry hanging in The Palace Bar. It was 6ft by 2ft, and depicted a team from one of the Coats thread mills in Russia taking on a native team at the beginning of the century. Taylor had to have it and the publican, George Walker, brother of Bobby, the famous Scottish inside-forward, consented. The journey back to the office, by public transport, proved precarious but worthwhile.
"I had a brainwave," said Taylor. "Why not ask Rangers to hang the picture in the Dynamo dressing-room to make the visitors feel right at home? Mr William Struth, then Rangers manager, liked the idea. So we took the huge picture down to the stadium and carefully hung it in the dressing-room Dynamo were to occupy."
THE Scottish press were left feeling rather shabby in their utility suits and patched shirts when they met the debonair representatives of Dynamo with their leather coats and wide-brimmed hats. The Russians brought their own food too. Taylor salivated at the sight of their "mountains of eggs, fountains of chocolate drinks and mounds of butter."
Then came the training sessions. Mikhail Yakushin, the Dynamo's tall blond manager, drilled his players with military precision. When a pretty female interpreter posed for a picture and miskicked the ball, Yakushin's brow furrowed in disapproval.
Rangers' players, meanwhile, were still part-time in the wake of the war and filed in for training after a day in the office or the factory. In contrast to Dynamo's players, they enjoyed themselves under the watchful eyes of Struth and Arthur Dixon, his trainer.
Both sides had Tigers in their teams. Rangers was Jock 'Tiger' Shaw, in defence, Dynamo's was Alexei 'Tiger' Khomich, the goalkeeper. Two future managers were also in Rangers' line-up, Willie Waddell and Scot Symon, and Dynamo's centre-forward was Constantin Beskov, who would later manage the USSR through to the second phase of the 1982 World Cup finals at Scotland's expense. Yakushin had also conscripted the pick of the players from CSKA Moscow, the Army team, so it was somewhat churlish when Dynamo suddenly objected to Rangers' plan to field Jimmy Caskie, who they had just signed from Everton, at outside-left.
A diplomatic incident threatened to ensue as the Russians said they would pack their bags and head home. At a Glasgow Corporation dinner before the match, Sir George Graham, secretary of the Scottish Football Association, appealed for them to relent but they merely shook their heads and filed sombrely out of the City Chambers. "With one sulky, but determined, gesture they forfeited a great deal of respect," Fairgrieve recalled.
At midnight on the eve of the match it was Rangers who backed down but their hackles were up. When Dynamo, junketed luxuriously, were taken for a sail on the Clyde they saw slogans painted on the sides of half-finished ships. When a Dynamo official inquired what they said, he was told "Who's Afraid of Caskie", by his grinning interpreter.
The game had not required hype, but it had it all the same. Taylor's prose was typical. "Football match? It had more the air of battle - for the scent of war was still in most people's noses and everyone was worrying about what the Russians were doing politically, the shadow of the Cold War was beginning to blot out victory over Germany."
THE day of the game dawned bright and crisp. Kick-off was scheduled for 2.15pm so that the match could be completed before darkness fell and 90,000 fans crammed into Ibrox. "Thousands of grandmothers must have died that day," said Taylor. Other, less wily, workers clocked up extra shifts in return for the afternoon off. With public transport curtailed, many walked to Ibrox.
Fifteen minutes before kick-off an astonished silence fell upon the seething crowd. The Russians had emerged to perform a meticulous warm-up, their twelve players performing carefully choreographed movements using six balls.
Previously, Scottish crowds had witnessed some haphazard shoot-ins prior to games. After that, the surprise of seeing Rangers in hoops, albeit blue-and-white ones, was a minor one for Ibrox. The teams exchanged bouquets of flowers and icy glares. Then, after the national anthems, the game began with another shock for the home fans.
The Russians opened with a breathtaking display of possession play. Unfortunately, the Rangers' players were as hypnotized as their supporters. After two minutes, they conceded a free kick on the edge of their box, were slow to line up their wall and Kartsev, Dynamo's inside-right, took advantage with an early shot. Neverthless, Rangers' fans were surprised to see it get past Jerry Dawson, but "the prince of goalkeepers" was carrying an injury and was slow to react.
Shrugging off their sleepy start, Rangers recovered to win a penalty as the burly Billy Williamson was felled in the box. Waddell stepped up and hit the ball with his customary force only for Khomich to spring into a superlative save, deflecting the ball onto the crossbar from where it was scrambled to safety. "It was a save that one is lucky to see in a lifetime," wrote Fairgrieve.
Dynamo doubled their lead in the 24th minute with what Taylor described as "one of the greatest goals ever seen at Ibrox". Kartsev, again, provided the finish after another bewitching passing movement.
The crowd feared an embarrassing beating, such as those English League selects had inflicted on their Scottish counterparts during wartime, but Rangers held on grimly. When they did pull a goal back, five minutes before half-time, it contrasted sharply with the beauty of the Russians' second. A high cross from the left saw Jimmy Smith, Rangers' giant centre-forward, and Khomich collide mightily and fall to the turf together, but Smith, although injured, retained the presence of mind to stick out a foot and roll the ball into the goal.
The second half was frantic and often ill-tempered but there was humour when Torry Gillick, the comedian of Rangers' team, started frowning and counting his opponents. A Russian sub had come on, but they had not withdrawn a player.
Later England would benefit from a Russian linesman, but on this occasion Rangers benefited from a Scottish one. When Williamson went sprawling in the penalty area, referee Tommy Thomson waved play on but then noticed Bobby Calder, one of his linesmen, waving frantically. After a quick consultation, he awarded the penalty. Rangers' supporters had reason to be thankful for Calder's keen eyes that day, but later they would curse them as the Rutherglen official would become chief scout of Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen.
Would Waddell play poker again with Khomich? No. George Young, the massive centre-half who would win 53 caps for Scotland, stepped up to lash the ball home. Rangers pressed for a winner and hit the post in the closing moments. but they would have to wait almost 27 years for a 3-2 win over Dynamo - in the European Cup Winners' Cup final at the Nou Camp. Waddell was by then the club's manager.
When Stalin died in March 1953, Beria attempted to take his place but failed. He was put on trial for "anti-state activities" and executed. His reputation has blighted Dynamo, now Dinamo, and many Muscovites prefer Spartak in consequence. Their crowd-pulling potential has long since deserted them, and they are now a mid-table side lucky to get 7,000 supporters in their dilapidated stadium.
Two days after the match, Taylor went to collect his picture. He was met by Symon who informed him there had been a "slight accident". The picture had been torn from the dressing-room wall and flung on the floor, its glass smashed. Taylor had his own theory on the vandalism.
"Far be it for a sportswriter to become involved in politics," he wrote. "But I still think that if the officers in the picture had been Red Army men and not so obviously Tsarist aristocrats, the picture wouldn't have required a new frame!"
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