Second Division. 22 teams – 3 relegated and 2 promoted. A limit on ties: 12 – after that, no points. Three teams exceeded the limit and lost points. 10 teams played in the top league before. The city of Rostov had 2 teams in the league and that was criticized – it was considered unhealthy experiment, resulting in mediocrity of both clubs plus shuffling of players between the rivals to nobody’s good. On the positive side was the increased number of candidates for promotion – usually no more than 3 teams competed for 2 promotions, this season there were 7! Yet, ancient ills were still at work and once again it was observed that many teams, including some among the leaders, do not want to be promoted and deliberately slowed down in the second half of the championship. The big disappointment was CSKA (Moscow), which fought for top position, but dropped to 3rd place at the end of the championship. Well, the 80s were real dark decade for CSKA. The league was won by well respected teams which never played top league football – this was somewhat new: usually former First Division teams won Second Division.
Kolos (Nikopol) finished last with 27 points and was relegated.
Zvezda (Perm) 21st with 32 points and out.
Zarya (Voroshilovgrad) – 20th with 32 points and relegated again. Seemingly, there was no recovery for the USSR champions of 1972 – back to Third Division.
Kuban (Krasnodar) – 19th with 35 points.
Kotaik (Abovyan) – 18th with 35 points.
Metallurg (Zaporozhye) – 17th with 36 points (lost 1 point for exceeding the tie limit).
Dinamo (Batumi) – 16th with 36 points.
Kuzbass (Kemerovo) – 15th with 38 points (lost 2 points for exceeding the tie limit).
Tavria (Simferopol) – 14th with 38 points (lost 2 points for exceeding the tie limit).
Spartak (Ordzhonikidze) – 13th with 39 points.
Geolog (Tyumen) – 12th with 39 points.
Shinnik (Yaroslavl) – 11th with 40 points. First row from left: A. Tzenin, ?, A. Molodtzov, Lukasevich, D. Popov, A. Kolesnikov, V. G. Gavrilov.
Standing: V. P. Petrov, S. Volnukhin, I. Makarov, V. G. Gavrilov – masseur, V. Bodrov, E. Martyanov, M. Morozov, Yu. Gerassimov, R. Bilyaletdinov, A. Piskunov, M. Chesnokov, B. Gavrilov, V. Sotnikov, V. Rozhin, A. Nikolaev, V. L. Chistyakov – coach.
Rostselmash (Rostov) – 10th with 40 points.
SKA (Rostov) – 9th with 42 points.
SKA Karpaty (Lvov) – 7th with 44 points.
Dinamo (Stavropol) – 6th with 47 points.
Pakhtakor (Tashkent) – 5th with 52 points.
Guria (Lanchkhuti) – 4th with 53 points.
CSKA (Moscow) – 3rd with 56 points. Lost the race by a tiny difference – one more bitter disappointment.
Rotor (Volgograd) – 2nd with 57 points. Clinched it at the end of the championship and was promoted – quite a surprise and a big success for the club. To a point, it was due to the coach Prokopenko, who arrived from Chernomoretz (Odessa), bringing a good player – Skripnik – with himself. Apart from those two, the team was quite anonymous at the moment – and that was a bit of comment on the general strength of the second level of Soviet football: for years it was observed that there were no great talent. That was why former members of the First Division most often won this championship – they had players of better quality. Anyhow, it was time to celebrate in Volgograd.
Pamir (Dushanbe) finished 1st – 24 wins, 10 ties, 8 losses, 78-44 goal-difference, 58 points. They prevailed in tough race and were going to debut in the First Division – great success! No wonder they photographed themselves on mountain peak – they climbed it and were going to climb even higher one. At least that was the gist of the symbolism.
Second Division champions – standing from left: O. Khabi – assistant coach, S. Arslanov, S. Ibadullaev, I. Omelchenko, V. Manasyan, V. Dolganov, V, Sysenko, A. Azimov, A. Volodenko, Yu. Baturenko, V. Ermolaev – captain, S. Baraev – administrator.
Crouching: L. Sapozhnikov – doctor and masseur, Z. Urunov – team chief, V. Tursunov, H. Fuzailov, M. Mukhamediev, R. Rakhimov, A. Manannikov, A. Yuldashev – coach, A. Gertner.
At last winning and going up – the biggest success in the history of the club – but it was a club usually a target of criticism: they played in the Second Division since it was formed and were considered one of the prime culprits of playing ‘safe’: that is, deliberately underperformimg, choosing to be one of the better second-tier clubs than to risk humiliation in the top league. Rotor was also accused of the same attitude, so were others, but Pamir was a staple: a prime example of what was wrong with Second Division. Good and experienced squad, including two of the all-time top scorers of the league – Tursunov and Manasyan. However, Tursunov, already a legend of Second Division, was at the end of his career and would not play in the top league. What made them wanting to climb up at last? Who knows… but they did and won. Speculations could go forever to no plausible conclusion – observers, commenting this championship, did not fail to voice the old accusations – see, we have been saying it for years: Pamir was more than able to win, but did not want to. Club and players said the opposite, of course – this time the team was real good, this time everything clicked right, and the usual platitudes. One thing was clear, though: the team was experienced and well balanced, but in terms of Second Division. To play successfully in the top league they needed new players, players with higher quality – if they could find them and risk major changes.
But all questions and speculations were for the future – presently, there were the new Second Division champions in their glory.