Spartak stadium disaster -

[Zoob]

I must admit, I'd not even heard of this horrible disaster.

 

Here

 

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands -- Twenty-five years after a disaster now acknowledged as the world's worst football tragedy, players from Spartak and Dutch side Haarlem will meet for a memorial match at the ground where some 340 people are believed to have died.

 

For years, the scale of the disaster at Moscow 's Lenin Stadium -- now renamed Luzhniki Stadium -- was hushed up.

A Soviet inquiry initially said 66 people had died in a crush on the stairs at the end of a 1982 UEFA Cup match between the two sides.

 

In 1989, an independent investigation concluded that the death toll was nearer 340.

"Years later I spoke with Andrei Chesnokov, the former tennis professional, and he told me that he was an eye witness and he saw enough bodies lined up to cover two tennis courts," said Dutch sportswriter Edwin Struis, the man behind the initiative to stage a memorial match.

 

Struis said both sides planned to bring their teams of 25 years ago to the match on Oct. 20 and that Spartak would invite relatives of the victims. The aim, he said, was to ensure that the incident was not forgotten.

"Last October we realized that it would be 25 years ago this year and therefore knew that if we wanted to do something it had to be now," Struis said.

 

"It started with e-mail contact with press officer Vladimir Shevchenko and club official Viktoria Zipidi because we didn't know if the club was willing to cooperate but they were so enthusiastic that I traveled to Russia in January to talk things through with officials of the club.

 

"We were not sure how the club would react to our idea but everyone, including fans and relatives, embraced the plan."

"We fully support the idea of organizing a benefit match, and will gladly cooperate in fulfilling this initiative," Shevchenko said.

Struis recalls watching the match in the Netherlands , unaware of the tragedy.

"It was the biggest game in Haarlem 's 118-year history," he said. "We watched the game at the town sports center on a big screen. Only seven years later, in 1989, did we find out what happened after the match."

Police were blamed for the disaster after apparently channeling fans who had decided to leave early down a narrow, icy staircase.

 

When Spartak scored a late second goal, fans tried to rush back into the stands and hundreds of people were crushed.

"More then 10,000 fans were located in one section of the stadium," said Struis.

"Spartak was the people's club and fans used matches to protest against the communist government."

Chesnokov, Ruud Gullit, Guus Hiddink and Joop Alberda will be part of a committee advising the foundation "To Russia With Love," which will collect money for a gift to the relatives.

 

Gullit started his professional career at Haarlem and left the club in 1982 to join Feyenoord after Haarlem had achieved their sole UEFA Cup qualification by finishing fourth in the Dutch league.

 

Former Netherlands coach Hiddink, now coach of Russia , and Alberda, technical director of the Russian football association, will be present at the match three days after their Euro 2008 qualifier against England .

The memorial game will be played before a Russian league match between Spartak and FK Moscow.

[Guest Cameron]

Damn, never even heard of this before. Very sad.

R.I.P to the supporters who lost their lives in that match.

[libero]

Maybe the Manc supporters have a song about it.???

 

RIP

[kop205]

Maybe the Manc supporters have a song about it.???

 

 

Not the time or the place for that comment in my opinion.

 

I can honestly say that I had never heard of this disaster before. That is shocking.

[Zoob]

I can honestly say that I had never heard of this disaster before. That is shocking.

 

I'm so surprised that people (including myself up till now) don't know about this. The deaths of the fans is bad enough but the fact that the number of deaths was covered up for so long is just unbelievable.

[Coyler]

That's almost unbelievable.

 

Has this been in the public domain since the inquiry in 1989? This is mad.

[fyds]

That's almost unbelievable.

 

Has this been in the public domain since the inquiry in 1989? This is mad.

Yes - the Moscow based Russian sports journal, Sovetskiy Sport reported on it that year, but it had a piss-poor circulation and what with the wall and the Soviet Union collapsing the same year, this story went almost unoticed in the wake of our own disaster in 1989.

 

Spartak Moscow and Torpedo Moscow, a lesser side thesedays who actually own the stadium they both share where the disaster took place, have also been historically two 'non-governmental' clubs, unlike many other forces-based sides, such as Dinamo Moscow and CSKA Moscow (who both got all sorts of 'help' from the government during the '60's and '70's) and Dinamo Kiev. There was a fascinating documentary about the terrible story of Eduard Streltsov, one of Torpedo's legendary players on BBC4 a while back which covered most of this - he was framed for rape by the autorities and imprisoned for 12 years doing hard labour, missing the showcase of the '58 world cup where many believe he would have been the star of the show, outshining the young Pele. His real 'crime' was being stunningly good and not wanting to leave Spartak for a Politburo favoured team.

[Zoob]

There was a fascinating documentary about the terrible story of Eduard Streltsov, one of Torpedo's legendary players on BBC4 a while back which covered most of this - he was framed for rape by the autorities and imprisoned for 12 years doing hard labour, missing the showcase of the '58 world cup where many believe he would have been the star of the show, outshining the young Pele. His real 'crime' was being stunningly good and not wanting to leave Spartak for a Politburo favoured team.

 

Actually, I remember seeing that documentary (but can't remember it covering the stadium disaster) - I think it was part of a really interesting season of documentaries about sport and politics being intertwined.

[Zoob]

Edit: oops. The documentary I saw was about an East German player - can't remember his name - who was screwed over for not doing what the Commies wanted him to do.