I the author of these lines am 63 years old, with more than 40 years skills of a journalist. Today I will tell you about a curious story what happened 50 years ago, on March 7th, 1973, before and during the1/4 final match of the European Cup Winners’ Cup between “Spartak” Moscow (USSR) and the famous Italian club “Milan”. In my 13, I lived and studied in my native Black Sea city of Sokhumi (Georgia). The match “Spartak” – “Milan” had to hold in Moscow but it was frosty and snowing there, and therefore “Spartak” decided to hold this game in the Black Sea city Sochi (Russian Federation), where in March the temperature was pleasant usually +10 + 15 and it was comfortable condition to play there (It should be distinguishes that since February 1921 Georgia was occupied by Bolshevik Russia and was the part of the Soviet Union between 1922-1990).
The flowers for a Milicioner in Sochi from Sokhumi
I went from Sokhumi to Sochi (140 km) with my classmate, who was a fan of Italian music and football. We went to Sochi no inform nor our parents nor schoolteachers. As we reached the stadium of Sochi, there was not surprised that there were no tickets at the ticket office, but tickets from resellers were too expensive. But we had our own plan how to enter the stadium: my classmate and I were looking for a long time which milicioner (In USSR the policeman was named as MILICIONER) to approach with a request to take us, schoolchildren, to the stadium without tickets and we had chosen a kind-looking lieutenant. We showed him our school cards. He was surprised when he heard that seventh-graders had come from Sokhumi to Sochi for a football.
Looking at my flowers of “Mimose”‘, lieuntenant asked me “Who is this for?” I replied that we would give him these flowers for his wife. “I’m not married, but I’ll give it to my mother, she will be pleased”, said the smiling milicioner. Recieving the flowers, the lieutenant provided us into the stadium, at the entrance to the controller and axplained him: “Those are schoolchildren from Sokhumi, they don’t have tickets, I’m not going to leave them on the street.” Just friended milicioner had arranged us the seat places 10 meters from a small group of “Milan” fans who had come from Italy – the guests were in bright clothes.
An adventure on the stadium in Sochi
When the announcer of the stadium shared the line-ups (the game started at 15:00), I with my classmate had been replicating the names of the “Milan” players aloud, among which were the legendary midfielder of the Italian national team Gianni Rivera, the outstanding defender of the German national team Karl-Heinz Schnellinger, the famous forward Romeo Benetti and midfielder Alberto Bigon. We watched the performances of River and Schnellinger on TV during the 1970 World Cup matches in Mexico. Seening how we had appreciated the technical play of “Milan” at the beginning of the match, two fans of the guests welcomed us and gifted us an Italian magazine with an article about “Milan”. We were delighted, but after a couple minutes a strong man approached us (probably, he was a member of the KGB of the USSR) and asked: “Boys, show me the magazine! What’s inside”. I showed him all the pages, he was pleased and sternly warned us: “It’s Okay, look after the game.” After that, we sat in silence, not wanting to attract the attention of that man, but perked up when the guests scored a goal in the 62nd minute: the assisting combination of River and Bigon’ strike, “Spartak”‘ goalkeeper Prokhorov saved the goal, but Benetti completed the combination and scored. “Milan” won 1-0, the Italian fans were happy with the result, but the local spectators were not.
Back to home in Sokhumi and punishing
At the evening come back home in Sokhumi, father asked me: “Did you like the game in Sochi?” It turns out that he learned from his Sokhumi friends, who watched the game on TV, that I and my classmate were at the match: how it’s seemed, during the TV broadcast after the goal scored by “Milan”, they showed the tribune of the fans of the guests and the people sitting next to them, including us to. My father Bochia Pachkoria (1936-1993) was a great football fan all his life and, together with his friends, often traveled to the matches of “Dinamo” Tbilisi (Georgia’s leading team) in Tbilisi, Kiev, Moscow, Minsk, Yerevan, Baku, Tashkent and other cities of the USSR. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he took me many times to matches in different cities, but my father did not go to Sochi for the “Spartak”-“Milan” game due to being busy, and therefore I went with a school friend “secretly” to Sochi.
My father encouraged my love in football, but on the evening of March 7th he reprimanded me for going to Sochi without his consent. But my adventures didn’t finnished there. A day late March 8th was a day off, and on March 9 at school #17 of Sokhumi were I studied I was called to the director of the school – he was Mr.Shalva Lasuria. The director met me with the words: “Tengiz, you and your friend missed classes at school and went to Sochi, this is bad. By the way, what team is favorite for you?” My answer “Off course “Dinamo” Tbilisi”, the director said: “But the goal was scored not by “Dinamo” Tbilisi, but “Milan” players, they say that you were happy on the tribune for the goal of the Italian club!”. I had said nothing.
The director laughed and kindly added: “If you want to go to football again, tell me and I will let you go from school, because I have to know where the schoolchildren are during school hours.” He put his hand on my shoulder and wished me good luck.
The return match of “Milan” and “Spartak” in Italy ended 1:1, in the semi-finals “Milan” defeated “Sparta” Prague (1:0, 1:0), and in the final beat English “Leeds” (1:0).”Milan” became a winner of the European Cup Winners’ Cup 1973.
It passed 50 years but every time when I watch the games of “Milan” I remember this game and my adventure in Sochi with sweet memory.
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Photo 1-2: Sochi , 1973 March 7th ”Spartak”- “Milan”; teams before game starts
Photo 3: Sochi , 1973 March 7th ”Spartak”- “Milan”;
Photo 4: Tengiz Pachkoria 2023
Photo 5: Tengiz Pachkoria, his father Bochia and sister Luiza, Sokhumi 1976.
Author:
Tengiz PACHKORIA
AIPS Member,
Honored Journalist of Georgia
