Club Focus - Karpaty Lviv


Arsenal are playing Karpaty Lviv next Sunday, although I'm on holiday so hopefully I'll get to the Obolon game on Wednesday the weather is dreadful today, so it seems like an opportune moment to look at one of Ukraine's most famous teams.


As I have stated before Karpaty were formed in 1963 as an alternative to the hated local army team SKA Lviv. They quickly gained popularity due to the fact that they only recruited local players and quickly became a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism in the most nationalistic of Ukrainian cities. To this very day they are seen as a symbol of nationalism and their president Petro Dymynskiy has called for a cap on the number of foreign players Ukrainian league teams can have. A fact that caused so much trouble with Metalurh Donestsk officials (their club has 20 foreigners on their books) that a deep animosity has grown up between the clubs.


Karpaty were originally formed by members of Silmash club and they joined division 2 of the Soviet League in 1963 before being promoted 4 years later. In 1969 they became the only club in the Soviet Union from outside of the Premier League to win the Soviet Cup by beating SKA Rostov.


A year later Karpaty joined the Premier Division of the Soviet League with the highlight being finishing in 4th place twice in 1976 (that year there was a Spring and an Autumn Championship).

However, this achievement was short lived as the following year Karpaty were again relegated to the 1st division.


In 1979 Karpaty nearly repeated their feet of 10 years earlier when they took on Dynamo Moscow in the Soviet Cup final. This time they didn't manage to win the cup though, and they controversially lost to one of the government's sponsored teams 2-1; the winning goal coming from a penalty in extra time.


In 1981 Karpaty were merged with the hated SKA Lviv team and were renamed SKA Karpaty. The highlight of this period was narrowly missing out on promotion to CSKA Moscow in 1986.


Since 1991 Karpaty have played in the Ukrainian League. Their highest position was 3rd in 1998 and they have finished runners up in the cup twice in 1993 and 1999. 2004, the 13th year of the Ukrainian Championship was definitely an unlucky one for Karpaty as they were relegated. They were promoted again in 2006 and are currently in the bottom half of the table.


Their stadium Ukraina is sometimes used for International games, although a new stadium is currently being built for Euro 2012.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Boca Juniors shirt history

Image
The first game that I will be at on Sunday sees Boca Juniors take on Paris Saint Germain. I have always wanted to go and see Boca Juniors and I can't see me getting over to Argentina any time in the near future, so I am going to have to make do with seeing them in North London. On my travels I have met plenty of Boca fans, but funnily enough they have all been Russian or Ukrainian. I am a bit disappointed that Martin Palermo has now retired, but I am still looking forward to it. Obviously to do justice to the club history of Boca Juniors I'd probably have to write a book, so here's a quick history of their kit and colours instead. When Boca were formed in 1905 they originally played in pink, but obviously came round to thinking that this was a bad idea and changed to a light blue colour later in the year. They didn't stick with this shirt for very long either and for the 3rd time in a year decided to change the shirt colour, this time to black and white stripes. The fol
Read more

shirt history AS Roma

Image
Roma were the club that I followed in Italy and although they are most famous for wearing red and yellow, hence the nickname giallo rosso the club didn't always wear those colours. AS Roma were formed in 1927 by a merger between SS Alba-Audace and Fortitudo-Pro Roma SGS with Italo Foschi being the driving force behind the merger. AS Roma could also trace their lineage back to FBC Roma who were formed in 1901 and who wore red and yellow, but the first shirts they wore took the red, white and blue of Fortitudo-Pro Roma. Roma soon established themselves at the top table of Italian football and in 1931 finished runners up to Juventus and by now had settled on red and yellow as their colours. However, you'll have to take my word for it because the picture below shows Attilio Ferraris in black and white. In 1942 Roma went one better and won their first Scudetto with Amadeo Amadei scoring 18 goals to help them secure the title. Pictured below he is wearing the change shirt with a repl
Read more

Sud Tribune, Dortmund

Image
The Sud Tribune at Westfalen is famed for the noise and support that it gives the BVB team. They started up early and carried on until well after the match had finished despite the poor result. At the end the team looked suitably disappointed when they thanked the fans. Nobody apart from the Hannover fans probably expected 96 to win. Hopefully better times for the Sud Tribune are just around the corner.
Read more