Alexander Kostov, or simply Sasho, ended his career in 1971. Born in 1938, he played for Levsky (Sofia) from 1955 to 1971, except in the 1960-61 season, when he was called for military service and played for Botev (Plovdiv) as most Levsky’s players of his generation did when soldiering. Sasho played 301 games and scored 78 goals (20 games and 13 goals for Botev; the rest for Levsky). He also played 7 games for the national team and scored 1 goal.

The last greeting to the public.

It is not his goals and trademark moves of the left winger which made him one of the most loved and long remembered players of Levsky, however. Sasho is a legend because of his pranks and jokes – his ability to entertain the fans. For this ability fans forgave him anything and coaches put up with him. A brief selection:
The goalkeeper missed the cross and Sasho got the ball in front of wide open net. The goalie did not bother the get up; both teams started walking to the centre – it was absolutely obvious goal. But Sasho stopped the ball in front of the goal line and addressed the goalie in words and obvious to the crowd gestures: ‘come on, get up, don’t lay in the dust. Stand up, like a man’. The goalie could not believe and did not move at first, so Sasho encouraged him a little more, until the keeper get up and actually rushed for the ball. Only then Sasho gently kicked it in the net, just enough to cross the goal line.
Levsky was playing against Lokomotiv (Sofia) and Kotkov (still a Lokomotiv player) was preparing for a corner kick against Levsky. ‘Kitten, pass me the ball, please’, said Sasho, who was supposed to be defending. ‘I’ll pass it back to you.’ ‘You are going to make fool of me’, answered suspicious Kotkov, who knew Sasho well enough to trust him. ‘I promise you!’, said Sasho sweetly. Kotkov risked it and pass the ball to… an opposition player. Sasho elegantly passed the ball back with a header. On both accasions Sasho was suspended by the Federation for ‘putting the game in disrepute’ and ‘making mockery of the fans’. But the fans even of opposite teams did not feel offended – they loved the pranks and laughed heartily.

Sasho was dangerous left wing and often the other team’s coach dispatched a defender to keep an eye on Kostov through the game personally, doing nothing else. Once a young player was to do this and Sasho felt the guy was too zealous… so when a pass came to him, he just stopped the ball, leaving it motionless a bit away from himself. Sasho stayed motionless too, and so was the defender watching him tensely. Suddenly Sasho dashed ahead and the defender followed him. But the ball remained where it was, Sasho run without it. Then he returned back and did the same one more time, and the defender again run after him and not for the ball. Sasho came back, kicked the ball a little more away from himself and started looking around seemingly absent minded. The defender finally mastered some courage and run for the ball – and in the very last moment Sasho reached for it, tricked the defender and attacked when the defender, kept by his own momentum was still running in the opposite direction.

Two verbal jokes from the legendary 7-2 win against the archenemy CSKA are still well remembered. During the match Sasho approached CSKA’s right winger Tzvetan Atanasov: ‘Tzetzo, they tell me you are the fastest player in CSKA. Is this right?’ ‘Yes’, answered Atanasov, ‘I am.’ ‘Good’, said Sasho innocently. ‘Why don’t you dash to your stadium (CSKA’s stadium is practically next to the National stadium where the derby was played) and bring the score board from there. See, there is no more space on this one for names of goal scorers.’ After the game Sasho commented the fact that CSKA scored the first and last goal in the game: ‘Oh, we let them score first to see how many fans they have. We let them score the last goal to see how many remained.’ At least Levsky’s fans saw double-edged joke: it sounded just innocent comment on the fate of CSKA’s fans in this game, but it also was interpreted to be a comment on the artificial nature of CSKA – a ‘new’ and Communist founded club, they had to built support by hook and crook in the early years – it was a common practice in the early years (and kept later as well) to bring soldiers to CSKA matches. Their officers commanded the soldiers to cheer CSKA, thus presenting ‘fans’ and large crowds. It was felt that CSKA’s fans were somewhat artificial, not real fans, and if the club is not strong, they will move to other clubs.
But it was not only pranks, and jokes entertaining the fans – Sasho did not spare teammates and coaches. Once he emerged for a training session with cigarette in his mouth. Rudolf Vitlacil, the strict disciplinarian Czechoslovakian coach of Levsky and the national team, was ready to explode. But when Sasho came near and Vitlacil was just opening his mouth to shout and punish, the player took the cigarette out from his mouth, unwrapped it, and casually put it back, starting munching. It was a bubble gum, shaped as cigarette.

During the qualification match for the World Cup against Israel, Sasho saw Vitlacil getting a reserve player to warm up. Substitute was coming. ‘Gundy’, casually said Sasho to Asparukhov, ‘Vitlacil is replacing you. He just told me to tell you.’ Asparukhov was disciplined player and took the news to be true. When substitute was signaled, he went to get replaced. ‘Where are you going?’, asked him puzzled Vitlacil. ‘Well, Sasho told me I am to be replaced.’ ‘Who, the hell, is Sasho to tell you what to do?’, exploded the coach, who had in mind entirely different player to be substituted. No wonder Sasho played only times for the national team. But normally a coach had to face destruction of his tactics in very different way: Sasho was not exactly a workaholic, and did not bother to play much against obviously weaker teams. It was a staple – since the roof of Levsky’s stadium shades only half of the pitch, Sasho simply stayed in the cooler shadowy half. When teams changed sides for the second half, Sasho did not go to the sunny part of the pitch, but remained in the shadowy part, thus doubling the right winger. And becoming an extra player on this flank, he did nothing at all – just walked around, cracking jokes with teammates, the opposite team, the referees, and sometime with the fans. There was nothing on earth to move him under the merciless rays of sunshine. The fans normally do not tolerate laziness, but Sasho they did and enjoyed – it was something eagerly waited to happen, and there were bets – was Sasho, by mere mistake, to expose himself to sunshine and break accidental sweat or not? The player never disappointed – from time to time he was coming dangerously close to the sunny place, it looked like he was going to enter sunny zone… but he never did. He was teasing the fans. Yes, tactics went to dust… but the public loved the pranks. When Sasho retired, a big part of old football disappeared – Sasho was fun. He constantly reminded everybody that football is not something severely serious and businesslike – it was a game after all. Something to be enjoyed. Sasho brought laughter to the stadium. For all his pranks, even his victims from other clubs did not hate him. Occasionally, like Kotkov, some players joined his prank to the delight of the fans of both teams. Football is fun. I miss the fun – it was gone when players like Sasho retired. In a way, 1971 marks the end of entertaining football. After this year it was steadily becoming more and more ‘serious’ affair, a business. No laughter… the end of laughter. Sadly, fun was gone.

Today everybody takes Paris Saint-Germain for granted – big European club. It is a new club, though – the name appeared for the first time in 1971. The history is at least confused, if not a football historian’s nightmare. In the old days football clubs were normally established by bunch of schoolboys. The newness of the venture also placed those schoolboys among the founders of national football championships – most old clubs are not only First Division clubs today, but often the most popular and successful ‘grand’ clubs of a given country. By 1970 the pioneer spirit was distant memory and whatever new clubs came into existence, they did not follow the noble tradition. Times changed. So, how to make brand new ‘big’ club? Paris was an obvious, however suspect place for that – large city lacking big football club. It was not that Paris lacked clubs – there were and are quite a few, but they were not successful and not exactly very popular. It could be said that Paris was not really a football city – the example comes from one of the oldest French clubs: Stade Francais. Continental European clubs are rarely only football clubs – more likely they are sports clubs, where football is only one section of the club. Stade Francais is just such a club and still most popular club in France, if we are talking total of supporters. But they are fans of other sports, not football… The football team of Stade Francais was strong name in the 1950s and 1960s, but by 1970 was in decline of which it never recovered. Presently, there is no attempt to ‘boost’ the football section, which kicks ball in the lower French divisions. On the other hand Stade Francais is a mighty power in the rugby universe:

Here is Stade Francais batlling Perpignan in September 2008 and leading the French rugby First Division (below):

In rugby – yes, they are popular, and wisely prefer to develop this sport. Other Parisian clubs just exist… Racing, perhaps the most successful of old clubs, has notoriously checkered history of ups and downs, renames, mergers, and folding ups. The rest are not worth even mentioning. Yet, Paris was supposed to have potential, regardless the evidence of lukewarm fans, if any. A group of ‘financial investors’ founded Paris FC (which appears differently in French statistics – FC Paris, no doubt to make it easier to navigate the confused history) with the objective of playing first division football by 1970. Different time… no more school kids, it was businessmen by late 1960s, and not losing money, if profit is not achievable, was of primary importance. But the different time was also obstacle – no school kids, but no first division either: a new club had to start from the lowest division in already structured football system. Starting from the bottom was not exactly what ‘investors’ have in mind – the bottom spells loss of money. The solution was a merger with another club, all the more urgent, because Paris FC had no players – it existed only as a name. The first attempt was to merge with CS Sedan – but the Paris Mayor’s office refused to accept it. Now, why politicians would interfere in football matters? Simple – the new club was to be financed, at least partially, by the City of Paris. The politicians did not find the idea of financing non-Parisian club attractive. Paris FC merged with Stade Saint-Germain in 1970, a small club, founded in 1904, but achieving nothing during the years. However, they were promoted to the Second Division at the time Paris FC was looking for by-passing the structure. Thus, 1970 is the year of founding Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, as the new name came to be. Alas, there is no Paris SG in the final table of French Second Division in the 1970-71 season – there is Paris FC, finishing in the promotion zone and going up. But Paris SG is the club finishing 16th in the 20-team French First Division in 1971-72. Why the club was Paris FC the year before and Paris SG is unknown to me, but the Paris Mayor’s office was still unhappy and ordered a split. ‘Saint-Germain’ was found not sufficiently Parisian name. In May 1972 there was no more Paris SG… or was it? The professional part of the ‘old’ club joined CA Montreuil and remained in First Division as… Paris FC. The amateur part went to Third Division, named … Paris Saint-Germain. The history is mum as for where the ‘investors’ went, but looks like they stayed with Paris SG, for Paris FC went down and Paris SG – up. Paris SG won promotion to the Second Division in 1972-73 season, however, by default – the champions of Third Division, US Le Petit-Quevilly, were disqualified. The upstarts faired better in the Second Division – they finished second, and after successful play-off against Valenciennes FC, returned to professional status and First Division football. The same season Paris FC ended in the relegation zone of the First Division and with some occasional jerks in upward direction, the club generally remained downward bound after 1973. Paris FC still exists, somewhere in the lower regions, but it does not play at its original stadium – Parc des Princes. Paris SG plays there today. Once getting into First Division, Paris SG never went down, and even won two national titles. But when and where their history started? How much early history is theirs and how much belongs to Paris FC? Why 1970 is given officially as the year of foundation? Was it fair to jump to the top by non-football means? If nothing else, at least example of shrewd business – an early warning of the bitter future, when football clubs are business and nothing else.

1970: ten suits and only one jersey – new type of football club is launched. At the time, red jerseys and white shorts were the kit. Did not last. The suits were no jokers: Jean Djorkaeff is the player introduced here. You are more familiar with his son Youri Djorkaeff, of course, but the ethnic Kalmik ‘Tchouki’ was a French star on his own right in the 1960s. Weird team, though… this group of eleven does not look competitive on the field. Just look at this walking stick… or umbrella… Tchouki was Paris SG player from 1970 to 1972, then he became Paris FC player for the next two seasons… now, was he transferred from one club to another? Of course not – statisticians simply follow the transformations of the club… but Tchouki was signed by the above ‘teammates’… where were they in 1972? Paying Tchouki’s wages in Paris FC, or leaving his contract to somebody else and pulling Paris SG out of Third Division?

Brazil 1971 - first national championshipTo the European eye, it was more than to the Brazilians. Magical Brazil, the best football nation in the world, the great World Champions, finally had their national championship. Legendary clubs, legendary stars… must be the best national league in the world. And the proof was the champion – Atletico Mineiro was not exactly famous club in Europe. Therefore, imagine this new league must be like: hidden treasures, great matches. Yet, who were Atletico Mineiro after all? At home, the reception was somewhat different: the national championship brought more grumbling than anything. The big clubs preferred to play their traditional state championships – less travel, bigger intrigue, more traditional derbies, larger crowds. At the bottom, club politics and fear of the unknown lurked, remained, and tainted the championship – to this day, the championship is uncertain affair. Big clubs boycotted it at least once; big clubs refused to be relegated and the Federation had to accommodate their demands. The very format changes constantly – there were more than 40 clubs participating at one point. From the beginning it was a mixed tournament: the original 20 teams met once with each other, then the top layer played similar to a cup format second leg, ending with final tournament of three teams, playing round-robin. Thus, the final table is strange to European eye: some teams ended with 27 games, others – with 19. It was designed to be attractive and to accommodate big clubs, especially if they made mistakes in the first phase. But it was not easy to pacify the grand clubs: they complained of losing away games, without having a chance to remedy the damage at home. They fielded second teams, preserving the real stars for the old state championships – still, the championship of Rio and Sao Paulo counted more for Flamengo, Fluminense, Vasco da Gama, Sao Paulo, Santos, etc. At the end, the national championship was not well received even by the fans – for a football crazy nation, the crowds at the national championship were small. With the years, even the history is bit muddled: there were four earlier tournaments, which, depending on the statistician, either count, or not count, as national championships. I suspect, big clubs rather prefer to count them, for they were slow to achieve success in the early years of the league. Not good for reputation somehow.
The first final table probably was not to the liking of most clubs – Santos with Pele ended 9th; Flamengo – 14th, and Fluminense – 16th. The legendary clubs of Rio’s ‘Flu-Fla’ derby did not make it even to the second stage… Flamengo winning only 4 games during the season. Perhaps even Sport (Recife) grumbled – small as they were from Rio-Sao Paulo point of view, they were ‘grand’ club in their home state, and it was ‘offensive’ to finish second from last. And the matches were no fun either… curiously, little football magic was displayed on the field. There is little magic now as well, so a new tradition of cautious, boring, and often ugly football was built in the land of football samba.Participants

América FC (Belo Horizonte-MG) Fluminense FC (Rio de Janeiro-GB) América FC (Rio de Janeiro-GB) Grêmio FBPA (Porto Alegre-RS) C Atlético Mineiro (Belo Horizonte-MG) SC Internacional (Porto Alegre-RS) EC Bahia (Salvador-BA) SE Palmeiras (São Paulo-SP) Botafogo FR (Rio de Janeiro-GB) A Portuguesa de Desportos (São Paulo-SP)Ceará SC (Fortaleza-CE) Santa Cruz FC (Recife-PE) SC Corinthians Paulista (São Paulo-SP) Santos FC (SP) Coritiba FC (Curitba-PR) São Paulo FC (SP) Cruzeiro EC (Belo Horizonte-MG) Sport Clube do Recife (PE)CR Flamengo (Rio de Janeiro-GB) CR Vasco da Gama (Rio de Janeiro-GB)

Table

1.Atlético-MG 2 2 0 0 2- 0 4 Champions

2.São Paulo 2 1 0 1 4- 2 2

3.Botafogo 2 0 0 2 1- 5 0

Final Table

1.Atlético-MG 27 12 10 5 39-22 34

2.São Paulo 27 10 10 7 26-23 30

3.Botafogo 27 8 12 7 27-27 28

4.Corinthians 25 12 7 6 33-21 31

5.Internacional 25 10 10 5 28-23 30

6.Grêmio 25 10 9 6 24-18 29

7.Palmeiras 25 9 10 6 27-20 28

8.Cruzeiro 25 8 12 5 28-17 28

9.Santos 25 9 9 7 24-16 27

10.Coritiba 25 11 4 10 23-25 26

11.América-GB 25 8 10 7 27-21 26

12.Vasco da Gama 25 7 9 9 15-22 23

13.Bahia 19 5 8 6 14-16 18

14.Flamengo 19 4 10 5 13-17 18

15.Santa Cruz 19 3 11 5 17-23 17

16.Fluminense 19 5 6 8 12-13 16

17.Portuguesa 19 6 3 10 16-24 15

18.América-MG 19 2 9 8 11-19 13

19.Sport 19 4 4 11 10-27 12

20.Ceará 19 2 5 12 5-25 9

Atletico Mineiro was the surprise champions, at least to the Europeans. A team with no stars really. Only two players of the team donned the famous yellow jersey of the national team – the goalkeeper Renato and the forward Dario.

Renato played a total of two matches for Brazil. He was a reserve in the 1974 squad, and did not play a minute. In 1971 he was not considered a possibility for the national team at all – he played his games for Brazil in later years.

Dario or Dada Maravilha (Dada the Wonder) was much more famous. A prolific goal-scorer, he was a minor legend. He scored the key goal in the last game, thus winning the title for Atletico Mineiro. So far, so good… he had a long career, and in the shaky world of Brazilian statisticians, sometimes he is considered the third all-time goal-scorer after Pele and Romario. But nobody invited the Wonder to the national team… until the Brazilian President Emilio Garrastazu Medici interfered in 1969. The official version is that: Medici called the national coach and asked him to include Dario in the squad. The coach refused… and he was coach no more. Mario Zagallo was appointed and he did not refuse the polite asking of Medici. Dario was a member of the 1970 World Champions. Zagallo obviously played safe: it was no use to refuse a President and a military President at that. In the same time, there was no need to play Dario… as long as the team was winning. Because of such political maneuvers, today is quite difficult to establish how many games Dario played for Brazil – I discovered a total of 11, scattered here and there from 1971 to 1973. All of them friendlies, some against clubs, not against national teams (so I am not even certain those count by FIFA rules), and almost always Dario came as a substitute. Seems to me, he was of this strange breed of players, who play great club football, fans adore them, but never fit into the national squad, and never play well with national jersey. Nevertheless, Atletico Mineiro with Renato and Dario were the first Brazilian champions, leaving behind clubs featuring Pele, Tostao, Rivelino, Jairzinho, Zico, Gerson, etc, etc, etc… Isn’t football great just because of unpredictability?

Lastly, the West German bribery scandal in 1971. The shame. The scandal shattered the image of North-West European football, the bastion of fairness. Bribes and corruption were South American, South European, and East European atrocities; they belonged to dark, underdeveloped people. Northern football was sparkling clean… until the shock of Germans bribing Germans, and scheming, and fixing results. The scandal was discussed earlier, no need to repeat it here. Except for one last point: North-Western Europeans are always quick to point accusing finger at the corrupt Southerners: they not only bribe, but when caught nothing happens to the guilty. Well, what exactly happened in fair West Germany? Not much really, when it came to punishment of the guilty.

Manfred Manglitz

Bernd Patzke – two of the big culprits.

French clubs deviated: they had routinely numbers on the front as well. For a soccer nut, gathering information largely from photos, it was great – seeing the numbers on team picture, one instantly knew who was playing what. This helped with unknown teams; in terms of playing football, there was no significance. There was the odd European club showing front numbers here and there, but only the French had it somewhat uniformly. May be it had been a rule of the French Football Federation, I don’t know. Typically, the numbers were small and unobtrusive. But in 1971 suddenly the numbers were big – as big as the normal numbers on the back. It was strange and funny back then, and still is – European football fan is conservative: he likes traditions and opposes innovations – front giant numbers were silly. Not serious. Not becoming. Ridiculous.

A.S. Nancy-Lorraine 1971-72
Back, left to right: Magiera, Woltrager, Lopez, Lemerre, Formica, Lanini
Front: Wiberg, Druda, Kuszowski, Zenier, Mariot.
Well, now you know that Woltreger was the stopper and Wiberg – the right winger. But look at the size of these numbers! What exactly purpose they serve? Football fans tend to know well their stars, numbers or no numbers. Whoever is not recognized by sight is not worth knowing anyway. But may be I am talking some obscure old stuff: how possibly one can know today who is who without name written on the shirt, personal number, and large-screen introductory close-ups? Squads change too often to be remembered. And new culture in cultivated: one knows Beckam because his name is written on his shirt and countless merchandise. I fear, wthout the written name, the contemporary fan may never be able to discover if Beckam plays or not. Football culture became Americanized – you don’t have to know by heart; you have to be specifically informed. Fans abandoned memory (not big surprise – fans are famous for other things, but not brains.) Big numbers at the late 1960s and early 1970s belonged to the laughable American soccer (and I am not talking of NASL, ‘the graveyard for European footballers’, as Gianni Rivera called it, but the American soccer before NASL): they had big front numbers (borrowed by the American football, no doubt about it) to accommodate the ignorant Americans. Did not help in North America, so why the French introduced the practice in Europe? Since the French were not big enthusiasts of American culture? Anyway, European football experts (fans) laugh and sneer at pathetic and ignorant in football matters Americans. Big numbers were synonymous to exactly that: pathetic ignorance. Something to laugh about. What next? Football on baseball grounds? No wonder French football was weak – copying the Yanks just proved it. On a serious note – if one can find such – it was strange fancy, luckily not lasting long. The horror associations were just too strong:

Here is the prototype: proto-NASL match between Baltimore Bays and Detroit Cougars in 1968. Printed names, big front numbers, and, yes: the baseball pitch. A joke…
Baltimore Bays had 1 (one) US player on their roster that year. Dennis Viollet, from the famed ‘Matt Busby’s babies’ Manchester United, was in the squad – how he felt when running out of the grass and onto the dirt? But never mind, here Baltimore is not attacking, but defending. Lone Detroit striker, Barry Rowan, is prevented from may be hitting the ball by visibly vigorous defense: the Argentine Constantino ‘Gaucho’ Tejada (16), the Israeli David Primo (4, who played at World Cup 1970), and the Spanish goalkeeper Carmelo Cedrun. Meantime, Luis Cesar Menotti was navigating similar field somewhere in the USA, playing for New York Generals – how he managed to lead Argentina to World title after chasing the ball in North America is really a question worth contemplating.
In 1971 the Americans were already getting into their minds to launch NASL and to provide plenty of cash to European and other oldtimers, yet, there was nothing new in that. Many old European stars and young nobodies from Europe, South America, and Africa played for North American clubs before 1970 – Ladislao Kubala managed to play with his son for Toronto, a drastic example of combining ancient stardom with mediocrity. Big frontal numbers? Ridiculous.
Sure, Nancy had the French national Roger Lemerre and the Danish striker Finn Wiberg in 1971, but it was unimaginable a club dressed like that to produce Michel Platini. They had to drop those frontal numbers first, to show some serious attitude… they did, and Platini emerged. Puritanism orders big numbers on the back! ,

Plamen Yankov. I am not alone blaming him for the death of Gundy and Kotkov – to me, and many others especially in 1971, he was the moral murderer. If he did not play brutally against Gundy on June 28, there would not have been tragic accident on June 30.

Yankov (b. 1951) was lowly player – he played for CSKA from 1969 to 1976, and then moved to Sliven, CSKA’s satellite, where many former CSKA’s players ended their careers. Young talent was also dispatched to Sliven first, to see are they any good for the mother club, but Yankov was never good to be send to ripe in Sliven. Instead, he was a substitute in CSKA’s for years, occasionally playing a full game when CSKA had too many injured players, or the opposition was so weak, there was no point to field the stars. The post he played is the bench, but he was one of the very few homegrown CSKA players until 1980. As a rule, none among the home product ever really made it in the first team, but Yankov was bellow most, so it is somewhat strange he was kept in CSKA for 7 years. I guess, CSKA kept Yankov and other eternal benchers just to have some substitutes and full squad. I can hardly imagine another reason: this guy was bellow mediocrity – I fondly remember him in action against Minyor (Pernik). The miners were no contest, and the Army fielded deep reserves from the freezer. Yankov found himself alone about 1 m in front of Minyor’s net. High ball was coming to him and without anybody near, Yankov was to be no less but a goalscorer. That is, if he just stayed where he was, not moving at all, and letting the ball hit him and bounce off into the net. But he was tempted – he kicked the ball. It went vertically… it was impossible to miss from that position, but he missed… when the ball eventually dropped back, there were the goalie and some defense player around Yankov, someone cleared the round object away. I still laugh at the memory. Yankov, however, served another purpose – whenever CSKA needed dirty work, they fielded him. In 1971 it was not so obvious, for he was new and rarely on the field, but he played against Levski, obviously instructed just to kick Asparukhov all the time. If a leg is broken – even better. Yankov was the last bitter drop for Gundy – provocations and brutality by skill-less player, for whom CSKA clearly did not care if he was red carded or not. They did not need him for anything else, except to injure Gundy. For this I blame Yankov as a moral murderer – Gundy was heartbroken and enraged, and dispirited victim of deliberate brutality. Yet, Yankov does not qualify for classic ‘butcher’ of Gentile’s kind. Gentile was a butcher, but he also knew how to play. He was not clumsy player and the ball was not alien object to him. CSKA had – as every team does – a long string of butchers during the years, and there were some in their 1971 squad. Butchers, who also played football – tough and merciless defensemen, or neurotic and short-tempered midfielders. They were perfectly capable of breaking legs, but also of giving passes and scoring. Yankov was hopeless as a player, and generally, when on the pitch, he was a big risk for his own team. Apparently, he was willing to serve otherwise – if instructed so, he was to kill a star of the opposition. Butchering Gundy was not his only achievement – other players of the time mention Yankov with disgust: it is always the same story – he was on the field only for kicking, swearing, and spitting. Yankov was often red carded in international games, but CSKA’s coaches never fretted about that – fielding him for just brutal acts, red card was anticipated in advance; a team with Yankov was 10 men anyway. The clumsy animal ended, apart from Gundy, the career of at least one other player (I remember certainly one – a veteran centre-back of provincial team, having a ‘second wind’ and splendid season until meeting Plamen Yankov. Yankov had simple solution for the annoying defenseman preventing CSKA from scoring and winning – he broke his leg, and the player never played again.) It is revolting that Yankov got some kind of fame because of his involvement in the death of Gundy and Kotkov…
I mourned in 1971 and the tragic year is unforgettable. I still think football became poorer game when Gundy and the Kitten went up in flames.

After the tragic – to the ridiculous. A classic vision of a football player: clean front of the jersey, displaying a small club emblem on the left or right breast. On the back- big number, telling everybody the player’s post. Some teams have numbers on the front of their shorts, but not every team. Socks display no numbers. Of course, I am not speaking of contemporary look – individual numbers, imprinted name of the player, numbers in front as well, numbers on the shorts. Numbers were plain affair ‘classically’, and they were plain because originally they did not exist. If I am not mistaken, numbers became obligatory around 1939. Nobody remembered numberless teams by 1971, numbers were taken for granted, but there was till at least one leftover of the old days: Celtic (Glasgow) played without shirt numbers – they had numbers only on the shorts, but on both sides, probably to satisfy regulations, however minimally, without giving up tradition. On the other hand, Leeds United went into excess – they had numbers on their socks around 1975. Numbers on the front of shorts were mandatory in the World Cup 1974, but, in general, only numbers on the back of the shirts were required for a long time.

Celtic-Ajax 1-0, first leg ¼ finals of European Champions Cup in 1971. No numbers on Celtic jerseys – exotic, stubborn, loveable traditionalism. In sharp contrast, Ajax already played with individual numbers. Guess who won at the end.