Win or Else
eBook - ePub

Win or Else

Soviet Football in Moscow and Beyond, 1921–1985

  1. 230 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Win or Else

Soviet Football in Moscow and Beyond, 1921–1985

About this book

In Win or Else, Larry E. Holmes shows us how Soviet football culture regularly disregarded official ideological and political imperatives and skirted the boundaries between socialism and capitalism.

In the early 1920s, the Soviet press denounced football as a bourgeois sport that was injurious to both mind and body. Within that same decade, however, it blew up, becoming the most popular spectator sport in the USSR and growing into a fiercely competitive business with complex regional and national bureaucracies, a strong international presence, and a conviction that victory on the field was also a victory of Soviet supremacy. Writing as both historian and fan, Holmes focuses his study on the provincial Kirov team Dinamo from 1979 to 1985, when the club played at both its worst and its best. Spurred by a dismal 1979 season, the team's administrators and regional authorities had two options: obey Moscow's edict to reduce expenditures on professional sports or seek out new—and often illicit—funding sources to fill out a team of champions.

Drawing on rich archival materials as well as newspapers and interviews with former players, Win or Else reveals the foundations of Soviet sports culture—and the hazards that teams faced both in victory and in loss.

Frequently asked questions

Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
No, books cannot be downloaded as external files, such as PDFs, for use outside of Perlego. However, you can download books within the Perlego app for offline reading on mobile or tablet. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
  • Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
  • Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
Both plans are available with monthly, semester, or annual billing cycles.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere — even offline. Perfect for commutes or when you’re on the go.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Win or Else by Larry E. Holmes, Samantha Lomb in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Russian Politics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Foreword
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Note on Transliteration
  8. Introduction
  9. Part I. The Shape of Soviet Football, 1917–1985
  10. Part II. Football in Russia’s Depths, 1979–1985
  11. Conclusion
  12. Epilogue
  13. Select Bibliography
  14. Index
  15. About the Author