Welcome to the former Czech female soccer players who gathered at the FAČR headquarters in Strahov, Prague. Some occasionally see each other over a drink or at the ping-pong table, others haven’t seen each other in decades.
“Girls, I don’t recognize you much anymore,” says Alena Chmelová, who arrived together with Miluší Rohlová from the Karlovy Vary region, with a smile. They used to play for Ruda Hvězda Karlovy Vary, which in its heyday was in third and fourth place in the first league.
A meeting of former soccer players at the FAČR headquarters.
However, most of the twenty or so football players present wore the jersey of Sparta, Slavia or Kovo Praha. It was from this trio that the first unofficial women’s national team was recruited in 1966, which first started in Slavia’s stitched jersey. It wasn’t until two years later that the girls donned the national team uniform.
Wednesday’s event on the history of women’s football in Czechoslovakia was organized by the Commission for History and Statistics of the FAČR together with Eva Haniaková, the former striker of Slavia and then coach of the Spartan youth team, who sent out almost fifty invitations.
Historical photos from the matches and the documentary Girls from Eden from 1970 were shown in the hall, when the Slavists beat their opponents with Klabzubac results. Only they were not coached from the line by a father with a pipe, but coach Wilibald “Vilda” Marzin. An energetic guy who put together a football team originally made up of handball players or female athletes, who also played soccer with gusto after training.
The captain was Zdislava “Slávka” Vošická, who played for Slavia for twenty years (1966–1986), and for the next few years she was “bafuňarila”. Carnival in skirts, it was said about her. She celebrated her 75th birthday in February. You can meet her, for example, at the women’s derby, she continues to support Slavia. Just like her peer Olga Pelikánová, who arrived with a red and white scarf around her neck.
Slavia soccer players with coach Vilda Marzin
There was also Dušan Žovinec, who has coached the Spartan women since 1988 and now works in the Leten club as general secretary, or Karel Rada, the current coach of the women’s national team.
Marie Wasner-Tlachová came from Moravia, one of the youngest participants of the meeting, born in 1968. The first Czech woman in the German Bundesliga, who played for TSV Battenberg and 1. FC Nuremberg, still has the ball at her feet. He starts for Uherský Brod in the third division.
“Jesus, it was a ponytail, it was a baby,” ex-goalkeeper Milada Novotná cracks her hands. In the national team, they lived in a room together, even though they were over ten years apart.
“Well, just tell me how you lit a cigarette in your room and got so slapped that you flew to the heater. I say: Such talent and you’re going to smoke? Well, she hasn’t lit up since then,” says the goalkeeper, who was already full at the time. “True, Novotná, ready for all kinds of trouble,” he winks. And her teammates know it well.
“Girls, I was so looking forward to you that I couldn’t even sleep,” says the lady who, as one of the few, played football not under her maiden name, but after her marriage as Urbanková. And thanks to his little grandchild, he continues to hear: “I’ll be eighty soon, but I can still handle twenty legs.”
They are moved, they laugh, they remember. Like how they scrubbed cinders off their knees. “The Italian women came and didn’t understand: What? Should we train on this black coal?” Or how difficult it was to combine work with sports. And most of all, as they enjoyed playing football, they put on rubber textile shoes for 34 CZK almost every day and traveled around Czechoslovakia and Europe in an old car.
The forerunner of the official women’s football competitions in our country was the “Heart of the Young World” tournament, which was held in the years 1966-1990. In the first year, 26 teams took part in the Slavia cinder block, which was unprecedented, and in the final the Slavists defeated the Spartans 1:0.
And although union officials protested, “We want nothing to do with this circus!”, a number of girls’ teams persisted.
And the best one? It was called Slavia Praha Exico, as it was sponsored by a foreign trade company. He had no competition. The girls, led by Marzino, went on their first trip abroad in June 1967 to a women’s team tournament in Italy.
Inter Milan, then champions of Italy, defeated Vošická et spol. 7:0. Fiorentina 6:0 and Forza Bologna 3:0. “We were the best team in Europe,” will also be heard at the meeting. During the years 1966–1970, the Slavists did not lose even once. Score? 1487:37.
In the 1970s, they were joined by rivals from Sparta, and these two teams are still fighting for the title today. After all, on Saturday afternoon they will compete in another derby at the stadium in Eden. “And together we cheer for our girls in the national team, hopefully they will get to the European Championship one day.”
Lunch time is approaching. Then a joint photo, a smile, a hug, cheers… Anyway, this day dedicated to women’s football is far from over.
