Exactly a century ago, Viktor Stepanovich Zhilin, forward of Kyiv Dynamo in the 1940s and 1950s, was born. He became the team's top scorer in 1949 and helped the White-Blues win silver medals in the USSR championship in 1952. In total, Zhilin played 97 matches for Dynamo Kyiv, scoring 17 goals. Let's get acquainted with the life story and football career of the outstanding Dynamo player.
Viktor ZhilinAmong the Dynamo players of the post-war period, Viktor Zhilin turned out to be one of the main centenarians. He died on the day when the Ukrainian national team won one of the biggest victories in its history — 6:0 in Andorra on Pokrov in 2009 at the age of 86. A few years earlier, the titled specialist received the gold medal of Group B of the Second League, promoted his then team, Sistema-Boreks, in the class, being the senior coach-laureate of the All-Ukrainian professional competitions.
The name of Zhilin is inextricably linked not only with Dynamo Kyiv, but also with a dozen and a half domestic teams. For many years of service to football (from 1939 to 2003, and in fact - until the last days of his life), he was called the Patriarch. We recall the history of the legendary Dynamo player especially for the “Golden Names” section of the official website of FC Dynamo (Kyiv).
Viktor Zhilin was born on January 9, 1923 in the city of Taganrog, which at that time was part of the Donetsk province of the Ukrainian SRR. His mother died at the birth of her son, his father, a military doctor, moved from city to city during his service, so the boy was raised by his father's mother, Matrona Lukyanovna. He lived with her grandfather, studied there, and started playing football there.
Taganrog schoolchildren considered local football players to be celestials, the greatest happiness was to bring the suitcase of their favorite player from the bus to the locker room. Out of several dozen young football fans, the best were invited to the team - first to practice, then to come on as a substitute in matches in which the score allowed it. Vitya Zhilin was among the most talented - at the age of 15 he began to be attracted to the team of the Dimitrov plant, he played for the seniors in the Wings of the Soviets team, was involved in the national team of the city and region, but his passion for football was interrupted due to the outbreak of war.
Terrible days have come for the orphan Zhilin - his grandfather died, his grandmother was shot by a fascist patrol during the curfew, Vitya himself was left by fate under occupation, forced labor, until he broke through to his own and as part of the Red Army reached the end of the war. Already at the end of hostilities, when life was slowly coming to life in the liberated lands, Zhilin returned to the game - first in Kursk, then in Dynamo Voronezh.
In the 1946 season, Dynamo Voronezh was supposed to meet in the match of the RSFSR championship with a double of Dynamo Moscow, and the first club team of Muscovites in those days was supposed to play with Dynamo Kyiv in the First group of the USSR championship. And rightly so, in front of the Kiev coaching staff, Vitya Zhilin gave a bright match against Moscow doubles, scored a goal and attracted the attention of the legendary Butusov. At the request of Mikhail Pavlovich, the administrator of the Ukrainian team, Rafail Feldstein, approached the 23-year-old striker and handed over an invitation from Dynamo Kyiv. Despite the resistance of the Voronezh general - the guardian of the local Dynamo, Zhilin moved to Dynamo Kiev - when the leader realized that Vitya was not moving to one of the competitors, but had a chance of a lifetime in the main team of the republic, he let him go and wished him success .
Dynamo of the late 40s is a team heavily beaten by the war. The Football Federation of the USSR (at that time - the Football Section) was even forced to make an additional decision - to leave Kiev in the First Group, who in 1946 took the last place. The motivation for the management decision is to support the team that suffered heavy losses in the war and is the main representative of their republic. Original coaches were called in to save Dynamo — Mikhail Butusov, Anton Idzkovsky, Konstantin Schegotsky, Mikhail Sushkov, Ivan Natarov, Mikhail Okun, Evgeny Fokin, Oleg Oshenkov. They succeeded each other, and the results remained unstable - having taken the disastrous last place in 1946, the following year the team climbed to fourth position, and a year later it was 10th, then 7th, then 13th.
Viktor Zhilin in Dynamo crossed paths with outstanding personalities - under him, the future "goalkeeper of the republic" Oleg Makarov started, the defense maestro Vitaly Golubev started very young, Yuri Voynov arrived in midfield - a world-class player, players of the older and younger generations played in the attack - from Fyodor Dashkov and Pavel Vinkovaty - to Andrey Zazroev and Mikhail Koman. The original Abram Lerman was still playing on defense, and the veteran Pyotr Dementiev, the legendary Peka, the most technical football player of his era, shone in attack.
Peka was also a top-class joker - it is enough to recall how during one of the Moscow trips there was no room in the hotels, and the Class A team was accommodated in the gym of the central stadium. And there, Dementiev, having persuaded his teammates, pulled on a fencing helmet, grabbed a rapier and began to poke at the sleeping Rafa Feldstein, saying “Give me back the money! Give me the money!" The unfortunate Rafail Moiseevich rushed to protect the team cashier with his body, everyone jumped up, what they were sleeping in - including the head coach, the legendary "quasimodo" Okun, and when the lights were turned on in the gym, the whole team died when they saw the "robber" - the short Peka was standing in the form of a foil fencer , in a mask and with bare feet... "Oh, duvaks..." lamented the administrator of "Dynamo" (Kyiv), becoming the victim of an epic prank. “He was distinguished by high speed qualities, tirelessness, a powerful blow from the right foot,” Zhilin’s contemporaries characterized.
In such a company, Zhilin did not get lost - playing a right winger (even closer in functionality to a flank midfielder than to a winger), in 1949 he became the top scorer of the season at Dynamo with a fairly decent indicator of 10 goals. The management treated the team strictly. Somehow, having lost to the Wings of the Soviets in his field, the guardian of Dynamo, the former head of the partisan movement of Ukraine, the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Tymofiy Strokach, ordered "for disorganization, sloppiness, disrespect for the audience" to send Lerman, Vinkovaty directly from the stadium to the guardhouse of Dynamo , Zhilina and Dashkova. When later Dynamo Kyiv did not leave a stone unturned from the glorious team of the Air Force (Moscow) - 5: 1, the fans chanted: "The whole team - to the lip !!!" Interestingly, to the delight of the head of Soviet Ukraine Nikita Khrushchev, Dynamo once again beat the Air Force in Moscow - in front of the "owner" of the pilot team Vasily Stalin.
Zhilin's football life was almost cut short by an episode in an ordinary championship match. On June 13, 1950, the people of Kiev in Yerevan played with the local Dynamo, the match went to a goalless draw, but the goalkeeper of the hosts Kelejyan boldly threw himself at the ball and several times saved the Armenians from the right goal. In one of the episodes, a tall athlete Kelejyan jumped to the interception and landed right on Victor's leg. For a long time, doctors could not determine how to treat Zhilin - a crack in the knee and damage to muscles and ligaments were not typical cases of practice, and purely sports medicine was still in its original state.
While recovering, Vitya could not help Dynamo. The new mentor of Kiev Oshenkov, who had not seen Zhilin in the game, called him to a conversation and frankly said: "You have a serious injury, but we have a task." After spending a lot of time recovering, Zhilin left the crutches and began to play for the Arsenal factory team, led by Dynamo player Iosif Lifshitz. Having won all the trade union tournaments in Ukraine, the Arsenal team from the capital reached the finals of the USSR Trade Union Cup, where they had to face the strongest team in Russia - the team from the city of Podlipok, Moscow Region, which included young midfielder Yuri Voinov. The final in Odessa ended in a draw - 2:2, extra time also did not determine the winner, and the replay was scheduled for the next day. However, the leaders of the two teams - Zhilin and Voinov - were noticed by representatives of the leading clubs. Voinov chose Zenit, and Zhilin was going to the Moscow Torpedo.
However, it suddenly turned out that the Soviet football player had no freedom of choice - Zhilin was summoned to the all-powerful Minister of Armaments of the USSR Dmitry Ustinov, who quite clearly explained to him that a football player from the security forces cannot just move to a trade union or industrial team. After spending half a day in the football player's waiting room, Ustinov said: "I was informed here that you do not want to go to Leningrad -" the cradle of the revolution ". And you are needed by Zenith, which also represents our industry, the defense industry. So yes. Either you will return the lifting gear and the keys to the apartment in Moscow that you received from Torpedo, or we will send you to a “mail box” in Siberia, after such a business trip you will tell how the underground factories work there. Of course, Zhilin left the office, apologized to the Torpedo team and went to Zenit.
It is fortunate that Zenit has a good team: the already familiar Yuri Voynov, the goalkeeper of the national team Leonid Ivanov, several well-known players led by Friedrich Maryutin. After a serious injury, Zhilin missed football so much that in 22 matches for Leningraders he scored 12 goals - his best result in the Major League. At the end of the championship in 1951, in a match against Dynamo Kyiv, Viktor picked up the ball, beat several opponents and hit the ball. Even the experienced goalkeeper Makarov could not help the guests out - 1:0, a victory over former teammates. After this match, Oshenkov asked Zhilin to return to the team, and Viktor, in order to see his family in Kyiv more often, agreed to Dynamo's offer.
In the experimental season of 1952, Viktor Zhilin made a feasible contribution to the first success of the post-war Dynamo (Kyiv) - the team became the vice-champion of the USSR, and its leading players received the title of master of sports (Zhilin is among them). The consequences of a serious injury and a critical, for the then football, 29-year-old age forced Viktor to leave the leading team of the Ukrainian SSR - in total, he played 97 matches for it, scoring 17 goals (in total in the Higher League of the USSR - 119 matches, 29 goals). Became the owner of the Cup of the Ukrainian SSR in 1947 and 1948. Zhilin played out in the Class "B" teams - the Riga "Daugava" and the Kiev ODO ("District House of Officers" - an army team, like the later SKA). At the age of 33, Victor finally finished with football and became a coach, which was facilitated by higher education - Zhilin first graduated from the school of coaches, and then the Kyiv State Institute of Physical Culture.
The coaching, as they would now say, Viktor Stepanovich’s career began with a curiosity - he simultaneously headed two physical education teams in Kyiv at once, and when he brought both to the finals of city competitions, the part-time job “surfaced” in front of the physical education chiefs, and Zhilin was exponentially fired from both teams. Nevertheless, in 1955-57, he managed to work fruitfully in the metropolitan teams "Temp" and "Polytechnic". He knew all the Kyiv sports youth well, and when the great Dynamo players Idzkovsky and Shchegotsky were invited to create a railway football team, they hired an old teammate.
At first, it was planned that the team with the name "Locomotive" would be based in Kyiv, but when the implementer of the Stakhanov production near the railway, Pyotr Krivonos, ran for deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from the Vinnitsa region, he decided to move the team there. This is how the team known in the future appeared - only the senior Dynamo players were not eager to exchange family comfort for a more distant deployment, so Zhilin himself remained at the head of the team and began to collect its combat strength. By the way, quite a few people from Kiev traditionally played on connections with Dynamo in Vinnitsa - even such original "stars" as Troyanovsky.
Over a long coaching career, Viktor Stepanovich led the teams Lokomotiv / Niva (Vinnitsa), Avangard (Kharkiv), Dniprovets (then Dneprodzerzhinsk, Kamenskoye), Zirka (then Kirovohrad, Kropyvnytskyi), Start ( Kyiv), Avtomobilist (Zhytomyr), Chornomorets (Odessa), Metallurg (Zaporozhye), Shakhtar (Alexandria), Spartak (Ivano-Frankivsk), Kryvbas (Krivoy Rog)), " Dnepr (Cherkassy), Vostok (Kyiv) and Mashinostroitel / Sistema-Boreks (Borodyanka).
Three times - in 1959 and 1964 with the Vinnitsa residents, in 1967 with the Zhytomyr residents - Zhilin became the winner of the "B" class zonal tournament (unofficially these competitions were called the "Ukrainian SSR championship"), in 1973 he won the Cup of the Ukrainian SSR at the head of the Kropyvnychians, and in 1976- m - with beards. Viktor Stepanovich devoted the last two decades of his life to the capital Borodyanka, at the age of 79 he won Group B of the Second League of Ukraine and promoted Sistema-Boreks in the class.
Among the players revealed under the leadership of Zhilin are Valentin Troyanovsky, Evgeny Kotelnikov, Yanosh Gabovda, Anton Vostrov, Anatoly Alexandrov, Stefan Reshko, Viktor Prokopenko (Lokomotiv Vinnitsa), Mikhail Forkash, Anatoly Bogovik, Alexander Degtyarev, Boris Kravchuk, Nikolay Batyuta, Anatoly Shepel, Vladimir Shishkov (Avtomobilist Zhytomyr), Semyon Altman, Leonid Buryak (Chernomorets Odessa), Valery Porkuyan (Zirka and Chernomorets), Leonid Koltun (Vanguard (Kharkiv), Ivan Vishnevsky ( Niva "Vinnitsa), Ivan Yaremchuk ("Dnepr" Cherkasy), Valery Samokhin ("Machine Builder" Borodianka).
One misfortune - in the Major League Zhilin-coach worked very little - and then, not in the team in which he was supposed to. He led Vinnitsa Lokomotiv to the Higher Union League, but the Soviet football leadership decided that the regional center should not be equal to the republican capitals, so Kharkiv Avangard (the future Metalist) played in the Higher League, which, strictly speaking, according to the sports principle should have flown. It was there that Zhilin, transferred from Vinnitsa, made his debut in Class A, but did not work for a long time in a team that was alien to him. He brought Chornomorets to the Higher League, in which he saw serious prospects, however, during the days of the next congress of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the team’s defender flew into a car accident with a fatal outcome, “voices” - foreign radio stations - began to talk about major football players, and Zhilin was “removed” from the post of head coach, although the sports results of the inhabitants of Odessa were good.
But what is this compared to truly popular recognition? On the map of Ukraine, one can mark the "Zhilin" places where he successfully worked, in the list of his pupils and just players, in whose fate he played a small but important role - collections and winners of European cups. Zhilin himself is a master of sports, an honored coach of Ukraine, an honorary citizen of Borodyanka, was awarded commemorative medals from local and republican councils, FFU and PFL. He even headed the Ukrainian national team, though a student one. But as a result, several players left it at once, who have grown to the Major League...
How domestic football lacks such Zhilins! .. Enthusiast coaches who spent days and nights at competitions of any level, found future stars among students and lovers of physical education teams, were not afraid to trust young people and knew how to work with them ... And also - imagine the star of modern Ukrainian football, who, after the end of her career, will go to work with amateurs or students, will agree to accept the team of the regional championship... The memory of V.S. Zhilin is honored at tournaments-memorials in several cities of Ukraine at once.
