Soviet Top League
The Soviet Top League, known after 1970 as the Higher League served as the top division of Soviet Union football from 1936 until 1991.
The professional top level of football competition among clubs was established in 1936 on proposition of Nikolai Starostin and was approved by the All-Union Council of Physical Culture. Originally it was called as Group A and after the World War II as the First Group. In 1950 after another reform of football in the Soviet Union, the First Group was replaced with Class A. By 1970 the Class A had expanded to three tiers with the top tier known as the Higher Group which in 1971 was renamed into the Higher League.
It was one of the best football leagues in Europe, ranking second among the UEFA members in 1988-1989 seasons. Three of its representatives reached the finals of the European club tournaments on four occasions: FC Dynamo Kyiv, FC Dinamo Tbilisi, and FC Dynamo Moscow. In the same way that the international community widely considers Russia to be the political successor state to the Soviet Union, UEFA considers the Russian Premier League to have succeeded the Soviet Top League.
Overview
Introduction and popularization
The league was established on the initiative of head of Spartak sport society, Nikolai Starostin. Starostin proposed to create eight professional club teams in six Soviet cities and hold two championship tournaments per calendar year. With minor corrections, the Soviet Council on Physical Culture accepted the Starostin's proposal creating a league of "demonstration teams of master" which were sponsored by sport societies and factories. Nikolai Starostin de facto became a godfather of the Soviet championships. Numerous mass events took place to promote the newly established competition, among which there was an introduction of football exhibition game as part of the Moscow Physical Culture Day parade, invitation of football team from Basque region which was on the side supported by Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War and others.In 1936 the first secretary of Komsomol Kosarev came up with an idea of playing an actual football game at the Red Square as part of the Physical Culture Day parade. Stalin never attended any sports events, but the Physical Culture Day was an exclusion to the rule. The 1936 Physical Culture Day parade was directed by Russian theatre director Valentin Pluchek. For the football game, a giant green felt carpet was sewn by Spartak athletes and laid down on the Red Square's cobblestones. A night before the parade, the rug was stitched together in sections, rolled up and then stored in a vestibule of the GUM department store located at the square. Following the 1936 Red Square game, it became a tradition before the World War II and part of the Physical Culture Day parade event.
In the late 1930s Spartak was giving out thousands of tickets per game to members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party. Among serious football fans was Lavrentiy Beria who proposed to have one team from each of union republics in the league. In July 1937 a conflict erupted following a successful tour to the Soviet Union of a football team from Basque region during which the main governing body of sports in the country, the All-Union Council of Physical Culture, was accused by the party and Komsomol for failing the sports policy. Spartak's leadership and Starostin in particular were accused of corruption and implementing "bourgeoisie methods" in Soviet sport.
The most prominent clubs of the league were FC Dynamo Kyiv, FC Spartak Moscow, and FC Dynamo Moscow. The most popular clubs besides the above-mentioned were PFC CSKA Moscow, FC Ararat Yerevan, and FC Dinamo Tbilisi. The first team that won 10 championships was Dynamo Moscow in 1963, followed by Spartak in 1979. Dinamo Tbilisi became famous for finishing third but never winning the title, the first title they won in 1964. Perceived as exclusively Russian by people from other countries, the league was truly multinational with other republics in the USSR being represented.
Eleven clubs spent over 30 seasons in the league with just under half of them from Moscow. Dynamo Moscow and Dynamo Kyiv were the only clubs that participated in all seasons of the league. Among other prominent Russian clubs were SKA Rostov/Donu, Zenit Leningrad, and Krylia Sovietov Kuibyshev. Ukraine was also often represented by Shakhtar Donetsk and later by Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk who were strong in the 1980s.
After the league's reorganization number of Ukrainian-based clubs grew and in the last seasons before the breakup of the USSR, Ukraine was often equally represented with the Russian clubs. Among the Soviet sports societies most successful were Dynamo and Army clubs, both of which also were closely associated with state enforcing agencies.
Development
Over the years the league changed, however from the 1970s its competition structure solidified with 16 participants, except from 1979 through 1985 when the number of participants was extended to 18. Because of the dissolution of the Soviet Union the structure of the league also became unstable as more and more clubs lost interest in continuing to participate in the league. Attempts to reorganize the league took place, however practically all of them were not successful.Until the 1960s the main title contenders in the league were the Moscow clubs of Spartak and Dynamo whose dominance was disrupted for only a brief period after World War II by CSKA Moscow, nicknamed 'The team of lieutenants'.
The 1960s saw the emergence of a new Soviet football elite in Torpedo Moscow and Dynamo Kyiv. While Moscow's automakers did not manage to grow into perennial challengers, the team from the Ukrainian capital became an unofficial feeder for the Soviet national team, replacing Dynamo Moscow. Dynamo Kyiv's success as a Ukrainian club was supplemented in the 1980s with the appearance of Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk led by its striker Oleh Protasov who set a new record for goals scored in a season. In 1984, Zenit Leningrad became Soviet champions for the first time. The Peter's men having a rich history in Russian football but for a long were unable to break the dominance of the Moscow-based clubs, or that of Dynamo Tbilisi and Kyiv.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it has been suggested that the competition be re-established along the lines of the Commonwealth of Independent States Cup, but due to a lack of interest on various levels the venture has never implemented. There were various other similar initiatives which ultimately found no support and were discontinued.
Documentation
Documentation about the league is scarce. Among well-known researchers are Aksel Vartanyan for Sport Express, Andrei Moroz and Georgiy Ibragimov for , Alexandru G.Paloşanu, , Mike Dryomin, Almantas Lauzadis, and Hans Schöggl for . Another extensive databases are composed at and .Names
Since its creation, the Soviet Top League's name changed a quite few times:;1936 – 1941 Group A
Prior to World War II the championship was split into several groups usually of eight teams and named by the letters of the Cyrillic script.
;1945 – 1949 The First Group of USSR
Upon the reestablishment of the league after the war for several years it was numbered sequentially with the top league being the First.
;1950 – 1962 Class "A" of USSR
Since 1950, the alphabetical classification of the Soviet league hierarchy has resumed. In 1960 through 1962 the league consisted of two groups with the better clubs qualified for the championship pool and less fortunate – the relegation pool.
;1963 – 1969 The First Group "A" of USSR
European representation
The first time the Soviet League was represented in Europe in the 1965-66 European Cup Winners' Cup by Dynamo Kyiv. In its first year the club reached the quarterfinals, eliminating on its way Coleraine and Rosenborg and winning all four matches with those clubs. The Ukrainians also knocked out reigning champions Celtic in the first round in the 1967-68 European Cup. In the 1968-69 season the Soviet clubs withdrew from continental competitions after the invasion of Czechoslovakia. From 1974 to 1984 the league was among the best 10 national competitions in the UEFA rankings reaching the 4th place in 1976 and 1977. From 1985 the Soviet Top League was among the best four in Europe, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.In 1987 and 1988 the Soviet Top League was the second best league in Europe, however by the end of the Soviet Union the results of its representatives worsened as top players could now leave and play for foreign leagues in the West. The very last coefficient position that the Soviet League placed was No. 9 in 1992. The 1992/93 season all the results of the Soviet League were transferred to the Russian Premier League. Throughout its history the representatives of the league on four occasions made to the finals of the three primary European competitions being victorious in three. Once a Soviet club was able to win the UEFA Super Cup.
Football championship among city teams (1923–1935)
Before establishment of professional competitions among clubs, in the Soviet Union existed another competition that was conducted among collective teams of various cities or republics.Champions and top goalscorers
Group A
Performance by club
First group
Performance by club
Class A
Performance by club
Class A (1st Group)
Class A (Top Group)
Top League
Overall statistics
Performance by club
Performance by republic
The republics that were never represented at the top level were the Turkmen SSR and the Kyrgyz SSR.All-time table
1Two points for a win. In 1973, a point for a draw was awarded only to a team that won the subsequent penalty shootout. In 1978–1988, the number of draws for which points were awarded was limited.Best coaches
Notes:- Clubs are shown those with which the listed coaches made the top-3, i.e. Beskov won two Top league titles and all with Spartak, but he also managed Dynamo with which he was a league runner-up.
Awards and prizes
| Prize | Creator | Years |
| The best footballer of the Year | "Futbol" weekly | 1964—1991 |
| The best goalie of the Year | "Ogonyok" magazine | 1960—1991 |
| The best topscorer | "Trud" newspaper | 1958—1991 |
| The Knight of the Attack | "Sovetskiy voin" magazine | 1984—1991 |
| Loyalty to the club | "Prapor kommunizma" Kiev newspaper | 1986—1989 |
| The best debutant of the season | "Smena" magazine | 1964—1975 |
| The best newcomer | "Sportivnye igry" magazine | 1986—1991 |
| To the attack setter | "Stroitelnaya gazeta" | 1988—1989 |
| With both squads | Football Federation of the USSR | 1958—1991 |
| Grigoriy Fedotov prize | CSKA | 1958—1991 |
| For the fair play | "Sovetskiy sport" newspaper | 1958—1969 |
| Fair Play | "Chelovek i zakon" magazine | 1974—1991 |
| The big score | "Futbol" weekly | 1961—1991 |
| For the will to victory | "Sovetskaya Rossiya" newspaper | 1962—1991 |
| For the best difference in goals | "Start" Ukrainian magazine | 1966—1991 |
| The challenging guest | "Komsomolskoye znamya" Kiev newspaper | 1966—1991 |
| The trouble for the elites | "Sportivnaya Moskva" weekly | 1976—1991 |
| Honor to the flag | Alma-Ata newspaper "Leninskaya smena" | 1969—1978 |
| Cup of the progress | Kiev "Rabochaya gazeta" | 1971—1991 |
| Together with a team | Presidium of the Football Federation of sport societies trade unions | 1978—1990 |
| The First height | Newspaper "Sotsialisticheskaya industriya" | 1983—1991 |
| For nobility and courage | Leningrad magazine "Avrora" | 1987—1989 |
| For the most beautiful goal of the season | Newspaper "Moskovskiy komsomolets" television program "Futbolnoye obozreniye" | 1964—1991 |