The well-known journalist Mykola Nesenyuk touched on the specifics of the current championship of Ukraine.
"Four years in a row - from 1985 to 1988 - I held a football tournament in December among the construction organizations of Rivne for the prize of the newspaper with a large circulation, in which I worked at the time. Why in December? This was our fashion then - to play football in the snow, on the ice or in the mud when there was a thaw.
Sixteen amateur teams played two halves of 25 minutes without a break - there were no changing rooms in the park where the tournament was held. They started at ten in the morning on the first Saturday of December and managed to play four matches before dusk. There are four more on Sunday, the quarterfinals next Saturday, and the semifinals and the final the day after tomorrow!
Of course, there were no spectators at those matches, with the exception of friends and familiar players who were basking in the buses allocated by the administration for the transportation of teams. And the teams played not for the audience, but for themselves, gaining strength and emotions for their main work as builders.
It was a long time ago and I had already forgotten about those tournaments. I remembered only now, when the games of the Ukrainian football championship, for security reasons, are also held during the day and without spectators. I will not compare the skill of modern football professionals with the skill of football builders of the 80s of the last century. But those amateurs had, it seems, more emotion and desire to play. At that time, they imagined themselves as "Dynamo" players, whose matches were watched on TV in the evening. At that time, no one could even think about playing in the afternoon and without spectators. And there was no war then..." Nesenyuk wrote on his Facebook page.