Second
Division. The very first season
of this league was strange in its make. Different aims collided:
purely sporting aims and ideological/political ones, each aggrivated
by geography. Combining both was not easy or satisfactory, in the
long term the third level suffered most, but the new Second Level was
to suffer too, at least the next season. No problem with 4 teams:
Kayrat, Lokomotiv (Moscow), Krylya Sovetov, and Uralmash – these
were relegated from First Division. The rest... there was no good
reason , from sporting point of view, for most teams to be here at
all. There was no good reason for those relegated at the end of the
season either. Ideology stepped in to void reason: all republics had
to be represented. This happened to be both unpractical and
impossible... first of all, Baltic republics and the far East
republics had weak football and fewer clubs than Russia and Ukraine.
At the end five republics had no team in the new division. If
Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan had teams in the First
Divisionand that served as excuse for not including more teams in the
Second Division, Estonia was entirely out of the two top leagues.
Ideology is fine as long as reality bites on it: 18 clubs of the new
league were selected from the 4 groups of former Second Level (which
now was Third Level) and there was no Estonian club playing there in
1969. It wasn't fair to include a team from even lower level... fine,
but it wasn't fair to include in the Second Division teams from lower
half of 1969 final table of Group 4, which combined clubs from the
weakest football regions of USSR – Stroitel (Ashgabat, 5th
in 1969), Alga (Frunze, 9th),
Daugava (Riga, 12th),
Moldova (Kishinev, 6th).
Add those who qualified normally: Zhalgiris (Vilnius, 1st)
Shakter (Karaganda, 2nd),
Lokomotiv (Tbilisi, 3rd),
and Energetik (Dushanbe). The teams coming from the other three
groups were more or less normally included: from Group 1 – the
winner won promotion to First Division under the old system, so those
bellow it joined Second Division: Dinamo (Leningrad, 2nd),
Kuban (Krasnodar, 3rd),
Tekstilshtik (Ivanovo, 4th).
From Group 2: SKA (Khabarovsk, 1st),
Rubin (Kazan, 2nd),
Volgar (Astrakhan, 4th).
Why Volgar was included instead of the third-placed team in the
group? Never mind... From Group 3: Dnepr (Dnepropetrovsk, 1st),
SKA (Kiev, 2nd),
Metallist (Kharkov, 3rd),
and Karpaty (Lvov, 6th).
The reason Karpaty was included was kind of plausible – they
sensationally won the Soviet Cup in 1969 and in 1970 played in the
Cup Winners Cup. Anyhow, the new league was formed, championship was
played and predictably at the bottom of the table were the weak teams
from former Group 4. And as long as ideology ruled, they were not
relegated – instead, the lowest placed teams from Ukraine and
Russia plus the only representative of Georgia went down: SKA
(Khabarovsk, Russia, 21st),
SKA (Kiev, Ukraine, 19th),
Kuban (Krasnodar, Russia, 16th),
and Lokomotiv (Tbilisi, Georgia, 15th).
Class
A - First Group (Second Level)
1.Karpaty Lvov 42 26 11 5 70-22 63 Promoted [UKR]
2.Kayrat Alma-Ata 42 25 11 6 71-29 61 Promoted [-] [KAZ]
--------------------------------------------------------
3.Dnepr Dnepropetrovsk 42 26 9 7 58-25 61 [UKR]
Sitting from left: Anatoly Napreev, Dmitry Dimitriadi, Zoltan Miles, Viktor Marenko – coach, Valery Sheludko, Vladimir Vaskovsky, Nikolay Goncharov, Vladimir Derkach. Top row: Anatoly Komkov, Vyacheslav Naumov, Aleksandr Kochetov, Vladimir Bassalaev, Aleksey Kuznetzov, Vladimir Belyakov, Yury Karnakhin, Vladimir Shalashov, Viktor Davidov, Mikhail Ermolaev, Viktor Kaplatzky, Rudolf Atamalyan, Yury Ivanov, Boris Podkorytov, Vladimir Zotikov, administrator.
4.Lokomotiv Moskva 42 20 10 12 53-39 50 [-] [RUS]
5.Metallist Kharkov 42 15 19 8 43-26 49 [UKR]
6.Dinamo Leningrad 42 19 9 14 62-49 47 [RUS]
7.Krylya Sovetov Kuibyshev 42 17 13 12 43-32 47 [-] [RUS]
8.Rubin Kazan 42 18 10 14 36-42 46 [RUS]
9.Shakhtyor Karaganda 42 15 15 12 49-43 45 [KAZ]
10.Žalgiris Vilnius 42 15 11 16 46-40 41 [LTU]
11.Moldova Kishinev 42 13 15 14 40-34 41 [MDA]
12.Textilshchik Ivanovo 42 13 14 15 36-51 40 [RUS]
13.Volgar Astrakhan 42 14 11 17 38-45 39 [RUS]
14.UralMash Sverdlovsk 42 13 12 17 37-49 38 [-] [RUS]
15.Lokomotiv Tbilisi 42 14 9 19 36-43 37 [GEO]
16.Kuban Krasnodar 42 11 15 16 27-45 37 [RUS]
17.Daugava Riga 42 11 11 20 36-50 33 [LVA]
18.Pamir Dushanbe 42 12 9 21 41-62 33 [TJK]
19.SKA Kiev 42 11 10 21 39-50 32 [UKR]
20.Alga Frunze 42 10 12 20 34-45 32 [KGZ]
21.SKA Khabarovsk 42 8 16 18 22-41 32 [RUS]
22.Stroitel Ashkhabad 42 6 8 28 22-77 20 [TKM]
Note: Energetik Dushanbe changed name to Pamir.

Karpaty (Lvov) – first champion of Second Division. From left:
Miklosh, Yust, Gabovda, Vayda, Sirov, Potochnyak, Savka, Sarabin,
Bulgakov, Pokora, Danilchuk, Likhachov.
What a story – Karpaty won the Soviet Cup in 1969 and was
champion of Second Division, thus earning promotion to the top league
in 1970. And in the fall of 1970 they represented USSR in the Cup
Winners Gup – the photo is from their clash with Steaua
(Bucharest).