Dynamo Kyiv Football Team

Dynamo was warming up before a match.  The games often start at seven-thirty in the evening and as you can see it was still daylight.  This was taken in August. 

Bill is a fan of football and since our marriage I have become more knowledgeable. We have been to a number of games since our arrival in Kyiv. Very kindly, when Bill began his long service leave, the members of the staff at the school Bill had taught at for many years came up with a lovely idea for a gift for him. They knew we were soon to leave for Ukraine and that Bill was keen on football, so they gave us funds to buy a season ticket so that we could attend Dynamo Kyiv games while living here. A very imaginative gift I thought. We have enjoyed ourselves at the games very much and this has been helped in that we have only seen one loss! At the present time Dynamo is second on the table but third and fourth are only one point behind, each with a game in hand.

Dynamo is usually in blue, but in this match they are the team in white and as you can see on the attack!

The games have been in a beautiful new stadium built for Euro 2012. The size of the crowds have varied but one of the first had the biggest crowd of about 29 000. There is a very organized fan base present at the games, about five hundred of them seated together who chant and sing and wave flags and scarves. There is also quite a considerable police presence at the games, some in full riot gear.

It is a multipurpose stadium and very new and nice.

Because public transport is good most people use it to travel to and from the games and so do we. One of my favourite travelling experiences happened travelling home from a Dynamo game. We arrived at the closest metro station suitable for us for going home. An enormous number of other people were there as well. The train arrived and we all surged on. I have been in crowds before but this was my densest by a long way. We weren't just squeezed in but absolutely packed in. I find it hard to stand in the metro trains unless I am holding on firmly, but this night I had no trouble at all standing upright because we were so jammed in that it was impossible to fall or move a muscle in any direction. A young man in front of me somehow managed to turn his head just a fraction and say something to me (in Ukrainian) and I believe it was to say that he and his girlfriend/wife wanted to get off the train at the next station. Now it was a useless exercise telling me that because I couldn't move in any direction whatever. Anyway we also wanted to leave at the next station. Fortunately for the young man and myself, most of the people around us also wanted to leave the train. At the station we all surged off as we had surged on.

 Since that time we have seen a young man have his hand almost caught outside the doors as he tried to squeeze onto a packed train. As the door shut on his hand he just managed to drag it in. Also a mother of one of the school children who has quite long hair told us how, in a very crowded train she was the last person on and the door shut on her hair. She said she had to stand almost nose to nose with the person in front of her with her head pulled up very erect because of the way her hair was caught. She was also very concerned about what would happen to her when they arrived at the next station and everyone rushed off the train and straight at her. Fortunately, enough people around her became aware of her predicament and gave her time to turn around and make her way off the train without being trampled. Life is full of adventures here.

Many of the victims at Babi Yar were Jewish.

Now for some sadder football related events from the past. Both are related to the Second World War. Kyiv was occupied by the German army for a little more than two years during the war and during that time the Dynamo football team was required to play matches against German teams. Apparently because the Dynamo team won all the matches some of the team were executed at a place called Babi Yar which was then on the outskirts of Kyiv. Many, many thousands of people were killed there. It is only about three kilometres from where we are living and we have been to the huge park now built over the sight and seen the memorials erected there.

This memorial is to the children who died at Babi Yar.

The other incident has more hope connected with it. On the actual day that Ukraine was invaded in 1941 there was to have been a football match in Kyiv to mark the opening of a new football stadium. An announcement was made to the people of Kyiv over the radio cancelling the match and saying that the first Saturday after the war was over and Ukraine was free, all tickets to the match would be honoured. That match did take place as promised and, to a standing ovation, nineteen people who still had their tickets entered the stands.

A beautiful park now stands where about 200 000 people died (taken before Charise returned to Australia).

In the background you can the main memorial at the entrance to the park. The site has many deep ravines and this monument aims to bring out this aspect of the site.

We plan, the Lord willing, on seeing and enjoying many more Dynamo games and perhaps see them play in the finals.