105 years since the birth of Vasiliy Kartsev

Vasiliy Mikhailovich was born on April 9, 1920 in Yegoryevsk near Moscow, where he started playing football. His first team was the local "Krasnoe Znamya", for which he played until 1938, after which he received an invitation to the Lokomotiv. For two seasons in the camp of railwaymen Kartsev played 42 matches and scored 18 goals, establishing himself as a bright scorer. At the same time, the concept of "Kartsevsky whip" entered the lexicon of Soviet football specialists – that's how the famous striker's shot was popularly called.

After the start of the Great Patriotic War, Kartsev graduated from the courses of lieutenants of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and in 1942 moved to the Dynamo Moscow, for which he made his debut in the first match of the 1945 season. Moreover, he made his debut in a way that he remembered for the rest of his life. In the 62nd minute, it was Kartsev who equalized the score in the away derby with Spartak, but after 13 minutes he got a red card. In total, in his debut season, Vasily Mikhailovich scored 21 goals in 18 matches – he lacked only three goals to catch up with the best scorer of the USSR championship Vsevolod Bobrov.

After the "golden" season, Kartsev, together with Dynamo, went on a tour of the UK, where he became one of his heroes. It was Vasiliy Mikhailovich who scored the first goal in the opening game with Chelsea, and then made a brace against the Glasgow Rangers in the final meeting.

– Among all my goals, I consider the goal I scored in the 65th minute against Chelsea to be the most important and most honorable. I was lucky at the English stadiums: I had the honor to score the first and last goals on our trip, - Kartsev later recalled.

At the same time, such a quatrain appeared in the Soviet press:

Kartsev has a brilliant throw,

Professorial, precise work,

Besides, he is famous as a player,

Who scored the first goal in the English goal.

He played for the blue and whites until 1951, after which he finished with football. The Dynamo scorer had serious health problems and struggled with a serious lung disease throughout his career. In 1952, Vasiliy Mikhailovich graduated from the Higher School of Coaches and worked for some time in the clubs of the Dynamo society in Yaroslavl, Rostov-on-Don and Sverdlovsk. He finished his coaching career in Spartak Ryazan, after which he worked as a radio fitter at the Ryazan radio factory.

In total, Kartsev played 110 matches for the blue and whites and scored 73 goals, thanks to which he is still among the top ten scorers in the history of our club.

– It was impossible not to admire the game of the right welterweight Vasily Kartsev. Short, thin, sickly-looking, he looked like a swift doe on the field, and it is difficult to remember a duel in which he would not have emerged victorious in his high-speed dash. Sincere, gentle in life, in football he was a thunderstorm of goalkeepers and defenders. And now they remember his tricky punches, which most often inexorably hit the target, – this is how Lev Yashin described Kartsev's game.

Kartsev passed away on April 11, 1987. In 2020, a memorial plaque was unveiled on the building of Gymnasium No. 10 in Yegoryevsk in honor of a native of the city, the famous football player Vasiliy Mikhailovich Kartsev.