VVS Moscow (russian: Военно-Воздушные Силы (Москва) / in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

: ''Moscow Military Air Force'') was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

sports club representing the

Soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...

. Among the sports the club participated in were

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

. They won the Soviet national basketball league championship in 1952, as well as the Soviet national volleyball league championship in 1952, and the Soviet national ice hockey league championship three times, in the years 1951, 1952, and 1953http://sports123.com/iho/msov.html following the 1950 Sverdlovsk Air Disaster.

Lieutenant General Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...

Vasily Stalin Vasily Iosifovich Stalin ( ka, ვასილი იოსების სტალინი, russian: Василий Иосифович Сталин; surname since 9 January 1962 Dzhugashvili, , ; 24 March 1921 – 19 March 1962) was the son ...

, the son of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

, was the president of the club.

Vsevolod Bobrov Vsevolod Mikhailovich Bobrov ( rus, Все́волод Миха́йлович Бобро́в, p=ˈfsʲevələd bɐˈbrof; 1 December 1922 – 1 July 1979) was a Soviet Union, Soviet athlete, who excelled in football (soccer), football, ban ...

played on the football team 1950–52 and the ice hockey team 1949–53. Viktor Tikhonov, the future Soviet national team's coach, played on the ice hockey team, as did

Boris Kulagin Boris Pavlovich Kulagin (Russian language, Russian: Борис Павлович Кулагин; December 31, 1924 – January 25, 1988) was a Russians, Russian ice hockey player and coach (sport), coach. Kulagin was one of the first players in the ...

, future coach of other

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

-based ice hockey teams.

Yevgeny Babich Yevgeni Makarovich Babich (7 January 1921 – 11 June 1972) was an ice hockey player who played in the Soviet Hockey League. Biography Babich played for HC CSKA Moscow. He was inducted into the Russian and Soviet Hockey Hall of Fame in ...

, otherwise a CDKA/CSKA player, played with the VVS hockey team for its three championship seasons.

Hockey team

In 1946–47, the VVS hockey team played in the new Soviet Championship with

Anatoly Tarasov Anatoly Vladimirovich Tarasov (russian: Анато́лий Влади́мирович Тара́сов; 10 December 1918 – 23 June 1995) was a Russian ice hockey player and coach. Tarasov is considered "the father of Russian ice hockey" and e ...

as player-coach. VVS finished second in group A in the opening phase and fifth overall. Tarasov scored 14 goals, the highest total of the season. Angry with Vasily Stalin in the next season, he quit and joined CDKA, later known as CSKA. At the end of the 1947–48 season, after the team finished seventh out of ten, Vasily Stalin brought the first line of forwards from

Spartak Moscow Spartak Moscow may refer to the following teams based or formerly based in Moscow, Russia: * FC Spartak Moscow, an association football club * HC Spartak Moscow, a professional ice hockey team * Spartak GM Moscow, a semi-professional rugby club * WB ...

to the team: Zdenek Zigmund, Ivan Novikov, and Yuri Tarasov. They finished second in 1948–49. On January 7, 1950, as the team was on the way to

Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk ( rus, Челя́бинск, p=tɕɪˈlʲæbʲɪnsk, a=Ru-Chelyabinsk.ogg; ba, Силәбе, ''Siläbe'') is the administrative center and largest city of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the seventh-largest city in Russia, with a ...

, their airplane

crashed "Crashed" is the third U.S. rock Single (music), single, (the fifth overall), from the band Daughtry (band), Daughtry's debut album. It was released only to U.S. rock stations on September 5, 2007. Upon its release the song got adds at those stat ...

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg ( ; rus, Екатеринбург, p=jɪkətʲɪrʲɪnˈburk), alternatively romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( rus, Свердло́вск, , svʲɪrˈdlofsk, 1924–1991), is a city and the administra ...

(then Sverdlovsk), and the only surviving players were Viktor Shuvalov and Vsevolod Bobrov, who were not on board. Bobrov overslept and took the train instead, and Shuvalov was injured. VVS finished fourth in that season. The 1950–51 season saw the best players from other teams starting to play on VVS, and the team won the league championship. That year was also the first year of the

USSR Cup The Soviet Cup, or USSR Cup (russian: Кубок СССР),, be, Кубак СССР, uz, СССР Кубоги, kk, КСРО Кубогы, ka, სსრკ თასი, az, ССРИ кубоку, lt, TSRS taurė, ro, Cupa URSS (Moldova ...

, where VVS lost the final 4–3 to Krylya Sovetov, also of Moscow. In 1951–52, VVS won another championship and the USSR Cup, beating CDSA (CDKA before, CSKA later) 3–2 in the tiebreaking game for the former and Krylya Sovetov 6–5 in the final for the latter. They won the championship again in 1952–53 despite Bobrov's injury. After Joseph Stalin died,

destalinization De-Stalinization (russian: десталинизация, translit=destalinizatsiya) comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension ...

resulted in the unceremonious dissolution of VVS.

Football team history

Notable players

Anatoli Isayev Anatoli Konstantinovich Isayev (russian: Анатолий Константинович Исаев; 14 July 1932 – 10 July 2016) was a Soviet football player and Soviet and Russian coach. Honours * Olympic champion: 1956. * Soviet Top Lea ...

Konstantin Krizhevsky Konstantin Stanislavovich Krizhevsky (russian: Константин Станиславович Крижевский; 20 February 1926 – 18 November 2000) was a Russian football defender. He was born in Odintsovo, Russia. He competed for the So ...

* Aleksei Paramonov * Anatoli Porkhunov

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:VVS Moscow Association football clubs established in 1945 Association football clubs disestablished in 1952 Defunct football clubs in Moscow Sports clubs in Moscow Armed Forces sports society Soviet Air Force Military sports clubs 1945 establishments in Russia 1952 disestablishments in Russia Soviet Top League clubs Military association football clubs in Russia