Today marks the 70th birthday of Mykola Pavlov, Honored Coach of Ukraine, a unique coach, football player and football official. Why is he unique?UVexplains in direct language from the hero of the day.
Nikolai Pavlov- Nikolay Petrovich, how are you, how is your mood, how is your health?
- I am doing well. I have no complaints about my health. I am preparing for my anniversary. I'm 70 years old, after all.
- You said that you don't celebrate birthdays after 2014?
- I don't celebrate, but I'm preparing an itinerary. I'll go either to Poltava or Dnipro. Or maybe I'll visit both cities in turn. I have friends there. I will celebrate my anniversary with them. I used to go there all the time on the day Mariupol was liberated, but after the full-scale war started, I can't go there anymore. So now my route is Poltava and Dnipro.
- Is everything okay at home ?
- Yes. My family - my wife Valentyna Vasylivna, two daughters, two grandsons. By the way, your eldest daughter Yana is your colleague, an honored journalist of Ukraine. She is now in London with her younger grandson. They have been abroad since the beginning of the war. First they were in the Baltic States, and then they moved to England. They lived in Manchester and now in London. Their youngest grandson Hrysha goes to school, learns English and plays football. My second grandson Vanya is in Ukraine with his father. They live near me. This year he finished the 10th grade. He is going to graduate from high school. He plays for the Left Bank youth team.
Valentina's younger daughter has been working at the Hilton Hotel in Kyiv for almost 20 years. She is single and lives alone.
- What does your usual day look like now?
- I go to bed early - I'm in bed at 10:30 pm. And I get up as soon as it dawns - at five or five-thirty I'm already on my feet. I have two breeds of pigeons - Kyiv and Mykolaiv. There are 50 pairs in total. I have three aquariums with fish. Since I live on the shore of a lake, I have a nursery where I breed fish, mostly crucians and carps. Sometimes they weigh 5 kilograms. I also have pike. This year, my friends brought me a rare sturgeon fish, which does not take root everywhere. Let's see what happens. So every Thursday I have a fish day, just like in the former USSR. We catch fish and eat (smiles).
- Do you catch fish yourself ?
- I have someone to fish for me (smiles ). I don't consider myself an avid fisherman.
- Are you a happy person ?
- Very happy. I have a wonderful wife. In three years it will be 50 years since we have been together. We have grown up children and grandchildren. What else do you need to be happy?
- Do you read what is being written about you?
- Of course I do. I am aware of all the events that are discussed and written about in the press. I have an iPad. In the morning, when I get up, I drink a cup of coffee and watch the news. Nowadays, the news feed is constantly changing, so I watch it in the evening and in the afternoon.
- What are the most ridiculous rumors you have heard about yourself ?
- Ridiculous? No, none at all. After all, I didn't do anything stupid to make them write any ridiculous things about me. When I finished coaching, for a while they wrote something about me being invited somewhere. But I quickly made an official statement that I had finally finished coaching. After a few months, all these conversations stopped.
- Were you invited anywhere after 2015 ?
- Yes, I was invited. But I won't say who and where. It is relevant now to write about young active coaches who are constantly invited here and there. No one has invited me to coach for a long time.
- Do you miss coaching ?
- I don't miss it at all. I think I should have quit coaching five years earlier. Football took too much energy from me.
- What do you remember most often from your football life now ?
- First of all, my colleagues with whom I had to work. And also the players I brought up, who opened up under me. Some of them are now working as coaches, while others are still playing.
- These are your words: "1983 in my playing career and 2009 in my coaching career were the best years for me"?
- Yes, they are. Because in those years we won titles. 1983 - championship medals, 2009 - the Ukrainian Cup.
- Let's talk about the teams with which you, as a player and head coach, achieved the highest success .
- It's a pleasure.
- You know, I first heard the name of a football player Pavlov in 1976. However, what I heard from the sports news did not make me happy as a Dnipro fan. Can you guess why?
- In 1976, I was in Kuibyshev, playing for Krylia Rad, and I got into an unpleasant story...
- No, it's not about that. You scored your first goal in the top Soviet league. Do you remember who it was?
- I remember - "DniproC. I scored the goal, as it turned out later, to my future coach, Leonid Koltun. It was indeed my debut goal in the top league. I remember that in that match I played as a left midfielder. I was one of the youngest players in the team.
And in the second half, a penalty kick was awarded to Dnipro. We have experienced guys in our team, but everyone stepped aside. And I went up and scored. Apparently, I felt confident during the game. However, Koltun parried my shot, but I sent the ball into the net with my second shot.
My goal was the only one in that match, and it brought us victory. That's the story(the report on that match does not mention a penalty: it says that the goal was scored during a quick attack - author's note).
- Krylia Rad in the mid-1970s attracted attention because Blokhin was in goal and Starukhin played in defense. Fans used to joke about this phenomenon: they were used to people with such surnames scoring a lot in other clubs.
-(Laughs.) Well, the other Oleh Blokhin, who played for Dynamo Kyiv, was indeed a star at the time, scoring a lot. But I met Vitalii Starukhin, a Shakhtar player, for the first time on the field in 1976, and before that I hadn't heard much about him(although Starukhin played 92 games in the top league between 1973 and 1976 and scored 30 goals - author's note). If I'm not mistaken, Starukhin became a formidable scorer a little later(in 1979 he became the top scorer in the USSR championship with 26 goals - author's note).
- Your path to Dnipro went through two more teams .
- I played three years in Kuibyshev(modern Samara - author) for Krylia Soviets - 43 matches, 1 goal. But in 1977, Krylia said goodbye to the major league. I also got into trouble there - three players, including me, got into a fight with the police, and we were disqualified forever. I didn't want to stay in Kuibyshev anymore, especially since Eduard Malofeev called me to Minsk.
- Did Malofeev know you back when you played in Brest?
- Yes, he did. Even before I left Brest, Malofeev took over Minsk. It was his first team as a head coach. He remembered me and recommended me to Dynamo Minsk in 1976, but I was afraid to go there. I was not sure that I would play in the first team and everyone would know about it. So I went to Kuibyshev. The team there is provincial, I thought, and if I don't play, who will remember it.
- How did you get announced for Dynamo Minsk when you had, as you say, a lifetime ban?
- Back then, the head of the Minsk team, Leonid Garay, and the head coach, Eduard Malofeev, turned to the legendary hero of the Belarusian partisan movement, Leventsov, as well as the leader of the republic, Masherov(Piotr Mironovich Masherov, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Belarusian Communist Party), for help. And they helped to remove this disqualification from me.
- Masherov was the first secretary of the Central Committee of Belarus. For those who don't know, what level was that?
- The level of the current president of the country. I was announced literally before the first calendar game - in Luhansk. Dynamo played mostly Belarusians. They put me in the main lineup. I played at number nine. In the three years I played for Dynamo Minsk, I missed one or two games due to injury, and a few more due to warnings. I was sent off once, in a match against CSKA.
- Then you changed your Minsk residence to Odesa ?
- Doctors insisted on changing the climate for my wife.
- But before Odesa, you went to Dnipro. Could you tell us more about that story?
- Before I got to Chornomorets, I went to Dnipro for negotiations. The team administrator Roman Kanafotskyi met me at the airport and took me to a meeting with the team manager Gennadiy Zhyzdyk. We talked. I asked him: "Where is the head coach?". I wanted to ask him how much he counted on me. And Zhyzdyk said to me: "Why do you need him? I'll tell you all the conditions - I'll decide them myself." And then he gave me his left hand.
- Were you offended by this?
- Of course it did. I didn't know at the time that Zhyzdyk had lost his right arm during the Great Patriotic War. And I hadn't even met the head coach, which left me doubting whether Dnipro needed me.
- Then the option with Chornomorets arose?
- I returned to Minsk. It was a day off and I received a call from Matvey Leontyevich Cherkasky, who worked as an assistant to Nikita Pavlovich Simonian when he was still the head coach of Chornomorets, but was about to leave the team. He told me that Serhiy Shaposhnikov was taking over the team and wanted me to play for him.
I told him that I had already been to Dnipropetrovs'k(modern Dnipro - author) and that I had been offered conditions there. And he said to me: "Kolya, Brezhnev will soon die and Dnipro will end. In Odesa, they will give you an apartment that you can exchange for an entire staircase in Dnipro" (smiles ). Before, apartments were not sold, but exchanged. And he made me laugh with these Jewish jokes.
- What did you agree on ?
- That I was going to Odesa. I took a ticket and flew. Shaposhnikov and his wife met me right at the airport. As it turned out later, they had planned that he would talk to me and then fly home to Moscow with his wife, while I would be taken to Odesa and shown everything. I had to spend the night in Odesa, because when I was going back, the plane was delayed due to weather conditions.
In the evening, we had a nice dinner at the hotel. They promised me a lot, but no more than what Zhizdyk offered me. In Dnipro, the conditions were even better. But because I was so well received in Odesa, I decided to accept Chornomorets' offer.
- But a couple of months passed and Shaposhnikov left Chornomorets .
- He spent the preparatory period with the team. And just a week before the start of the championship, he left Odesa. He didn't like the attitude of the local leaders towards football. What he was promised was not done. Something about his personal conditions. Viktor Prokopenko was appointed acting head coach, and then he became the head coach of Odesa. I agreed with Viktor Yevhenovych that I would play until the end of the season and then leave.
- Prokopenko was 37 at the time, and it was his first serious job. How was it working with him?
- I had a great relationship with him. He was young and joking all the time. I remember him saying: "You live once, and you have to live at least a little bit in Odesa" (smiles ). In general, I have never had a bad relationship with any coach I've worked for. I am a hardworking person. I always fulfilled the coach's requirements. That's why I had full contact with the coaches.
- Why didn't you want to stay in Odesa and work for Prokopenko ?
- The fact is that Dynamo Minsk, from which I left, became the champion in 1982. I was a player in the first team there. And at Chornomorets, Prokopenko and I fought to keep our registration in the top league(we eventually did, we took 10th place - author's note).
I'll tell you a story: when I came to Chornomorets, they immediately wanted to give me a GAZ-24 Volga. I didn't take it. I asked: "If I take this Volga now and then want to leave, will you let me go?" They said: "Of course not". Then I asked for another car, and they gave me a Zhiguli. "In the Soviet Union, we were given Volgas to sell and earn extra money.
- Did you ask for a job at Dnipro yourself?
- "It was uncomfortable to call them myself, so I decided to contact them through the legendary goalkeeper of Dynamo Kyiv, Oleh Makarov, who knew Yemets and Zhyzdyk well. Oleg Makarov knew my brother well, who worked at the cemetery, and met him when he was burying his mother. My brother was a fan, and they became friends with Makarov. Then he introduced me to him.
I helped him with a voucher to a sanatorium when I was playing for Dnipro. It used to be difficult to get to a sanatorium, but our players had this opportunity. Pivdenmash gave us such vouchers. I made an arrangement, bought a voucher for his family, and gave him a gift.
- Did Makarov call Yemets and Zhyzdyk or meet with them?
- Yes, he did. I asked him to find out if a player like Pavlov was still in their sphere of personnel interests. I said that I would like to come and talk to them, explain the reason for my refusal to Dnipro the first time.
- And what was the reaction of Yemets and Zhyzdyk to your request?
- They said: "If you really want to come, then take it yourself." They were vacationing with their wives in Gurzuf. I went to visit them on my day off. We met at the hotel. This time, Yemets was with Zhyzdyk.
He apologized to me. I explained the reason for my refusal the first time. They said the following: "We will fulfill everything we promised you a year ago, but not immediately, but only when you deserve it." But first they promised to give you a car and an apartment...
- And when did you deserve an apartment and a car?
- They gave me a three-room apartment right away because my wife was pregnant with our second child. There was no talk of a car. It turned out that from the first games at the training camp, and then in the championship, I started playing in the first line. Zhyzdyk called me and said: "Kolya, I think you have already earned a car. You will get it within a week."
- Did you fulfill your promise?
- No. A week passes, and ten days are silent. No one told me anything about the car. And then I gathered courage, drank champagne for courage and went to a country base. We had just started a winning streak. I'm sitting with the guys. All of us are in sports uniforms, I'm the only one in a suit and tie.
Zhizdyk and Yemets come in, look at me and say to me as a joke: "Kolya, why are you dressed like that?" I answered: "I want to talk to you." After the general meeting, the team left, and I was left with the two of them. I said: "You promised to give me a car within a week. And I'm the kind of person who, if I'm promised and not fulfilled, then I will have a completely different attitude to business after that."
Zhizdyk tells me: "Will you wait four days?" I answered: "Tell me honestly, if I have to wait six months, I will wait. I'll kill myself on the field, and you will never have any questions for me." "No six months - four days," Zhizdyk said, and we parted ways on that. And the next day I got a call and was told to go pick up my car. They gave me a light gray Volga GAZ-24. Before that, I had a green Volga in Minsk.
- Did they improve your living conditions ?
- Already at the end of the 1983 championship, when we were on our way to winning the championship, Zhizdyk said that they were giving me a better apartment than the one I had in the city center on LeningradskayaStreet (now the name of this street is Prince Yaroslav the Wise - author's note).
I lived in the same building with Cherednyk, Dilai, I think Kuznetsov, and Valeriy Mykolayovych Shamardin. We got apartments together.
- Oleksii Cherednyk told me that when you moved in, the song "A Million, a Million Scarlet Roses" was playing from your windows all night long.
- Your pregnant wife went to another city to give birth to a child. Well, I had to have some kind of creative rest (smiles).
- Were you a fan of Alla Pugacheva 's work?
- The thing is that at that time I had only one of her records. That's why I played it all the time.
- How did the team at Dnipro receive you? Who were your friends with?
- They welcomed me very well. At first I was friends with Volodymyr Ustynov, then with Valerii Zuiev. With the local guys: Lysenko, Kutuzov, Bobrykov. I had no problems with my teammates.
Let me tell you the story of my move to Dnipro. The team and I went to the training camp, and my things were still in Odesa. My wife's parents packed them up and sent them by car to Dnipro. It so happened that I had to go somewhere, so I didn't have time to meet the car. I asked the guys, five of them: Dilai, Ustinov, Bobrykov, to meet me. I promised them that when I got there, I would pay them off and cover the meadow. They gave me an apartment on the eighth floor. The elevator works on and off - it's a new building. The guys met the car and carried these things upstairs. My wife worked in a bookstore in Kuibyshev. She read a lot and got me hooked on books. So I had a wonderful library, a subscription.
- And you took this library with you from city to city?
- Of course. The books were in boxes. The boxes are very heavy. When the players were carrying them, they kept thinking: "What's so heavy?" And suddenly one of the boxes fell apart, and these books fell out of it. Later we sat with the boys and they told us what their reaction was, how they swore when they saw what they were carrying. For some time afterwards, they called me "reader-writer."
- What kind of literature did you prefer ?
- The first book my wife suggested I read was Jack London's Little Mistress of the Big House. And then it went on and on. I liked to read various melodramas with a good ending and about love.
- According to the tradition of Soviet times, before the USSR championship, football players took on socialist commitments. Is it true that in 1983 Dnipro challenged Pakhtakor Tashkent to a social competition?
- Something like that happened, but I don't remember the details. I remember that after a year at Dnipro, Zhyzdyk offered me to join the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. I did not think about it. They required recommendations, characteristics, and everything else. But I received all this and joined the ranks of the CPSU. At the end of the season, when Oleksandr Pogorelov and Volodymyr Ustymchyk were absent from the field, I came out with the captain's armband.
- In Soviet times, how did you get a positive characterization after what happened at Krylia Rad, when you fought with the police? Was the path to the CPSU closed forever after this act?
- When I was accepted into the Party, no one even mentioned that incident.
- Which match of 1983 was special for you ?
- They are all special to me. I remember them all. I played 33 matches without substitutions, except for one - the championship match against Spartak, because I had too many cards. I played in defense, as a holding midfielder. I scored three goals. Two from the penalty spot - Ararat and Zenit. One from the game - CSKA. The team with which Shaposhnikov worked, who invited me to Odesa.
Oleksandr Petrov.
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