Dukla Prague (Czechoslovakia)
Founded
in 1948 as Armadni telovychivny klub, or ATK Praha, the club immediately
started their existence in the topflight of Czechoslovakian football. The club
was part of a wider sports organisation and was run by the Czechoslovak Army. They
wore the colours of Brown and yellow, while playing their games at the Stadion
Juliska.
It
didn’t take long for their first name change, however,
and in 1953, they changed their name to Ustredni dum armady (UAD) Praha. It was
the same season, in 1953, that they won their first league title. In a
fourteen-team league, each club only played each other once, meaning their was
a total of thirteen games. UAD Praha came out on top, winning ten, drawing two
and losing only one game that season. They finished three points ahead of their
nearest rivals, Spartak Prague Sokolovo, or AC Sparta Prague as they are known
today. UAD’s top goal scorer that season was Otto
Hemele, with nine goals in the thirteen games. He went on to make ten
appearances for the Czechoslovakian national team, scoring four goals in total.
With no European competition to play in until 1955, the club would have to wait
before they would get to test themselves against the best around the continent.
The
1954 season was a little underwhelming, as the club finished 4th, in
what was now a twelve-team league, with clubs playing each other both home and
away. They finished five points behind eventual winners, Slavia Prague
Sokolovo. In the 1955 season, they just missed out on their second title and a
place in the European Cup, when they finished second, two points behind
eventual winners Slovan Bratislavia. Ladislav Prada scored 17 goals that
season, just behind the eventual golden boot winner, Emil Pazicky, who had
scored 19, with both Slovan Bratislavia and Slovena Zilina.
Not
to be discouraged, the club went into the 1956 season with high hopes, and with
new name. It was this season that they became known as Dukla Prague, in memory
of those who passed at the Battle of Dukla Pass in 1944, during the Second
World War. Who knows if the name change was what spurred them on that season,
but the club went one better than the previous season and won their second
title, beating Slovan Bratislavia to the trophy by five points. It also meant
they had qualified for the European Cup first round. It would become even
better for the club when they drew English club Manchester United. They were
subsequently knocked out, 3-1 on aggregate, but they had gotten a tatse for
success and it wasn’t long until they were lifting their
third title.
In
fact, it was the 1957 season in which they did this, winning it by the slimmest
of margins, by goal difference over rivals Sparta Prague Sokolovo. A third
title and another chance to play in the European cup. This time the draw was
regionalised, and so they played Croatian side, NK Dinamo Zagreb, The first leg
ended in a 2-2 draw away from home, but the Czechoslovakian side edged it in
the second leg, winning it 2-1 and progressing the next round. It was here
where they met Austrian side, Wiener Sport Club and were knocked out, 3-2 on
aggregate. But Dukla were starting to establish themselves as one of the
biggest clubs in Czechoslovakia.
The
1958-59 season saw the club finish runners-up to Slovan Bratislavia, who win
the league convincingly by a five-point margin. But that was to be the catylst
of a dominant run for Dukla on the domestic front. The club went on to win four
league titles in a row, from the 1960-61 season to the 1963-64 seasons. They
had also won the Czechoslovakian cup once in that time, in the 1960-61 season.
During all of this domestic success came European adventures, and in 1961-62,
the club recorded their second success in a European cup competition, beating
Bulgarian side, CDNA Sofia, 6-5 on aggregate. They then beat Swiss cub
Servette, 5-4 on aggregate in the next round, progressing to the quarterfinals,
where they met English side Tottenham Hotspur. After a historic win at the
Stadion Dr. Vaclava Vacka, in front of over thirty-two thousand people, in
which Dukla won 1-0 thanks to a goal in the 59th minute from Kucera, they
travelled to England, hoping to cause an upset and progress to the semi-final.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be, and Spurs took an early lead in
the 11th minute thanks to a goal from Bobby Smith. That lead was
doubled soon after when Dave Mackay scored in the 15th minute to
give Spurs the advantage on aggregate. Although, Dula pulled a goal back to
level the te jut before half time through Jelinek (44th minute), the
tie was settled in the second half with two quick-fire goals. The first coming
from Smith once again in the 54th minute while Mackay also got his
second of the game in the 56th minute. The tie ended 4-2 on
aggregate to Spurs,
The
next season, after winning the title once again, their European adventure
started off brightly, with a 4-0 aggregate win over German side Vorwarts
Berlin. The next round was even more convincingly won, when they dispatched
Norwegian side, Esbjerg, 5-0 on aggregate. It meant they had once again managed
to progress as far as the quarterfinals, but once again this was as far as they
would reach, as they lost out to Portuguese giants, Benfica, 2-1 on aggregate.
It was a Benfica side that included Eusebio, and one that went all the way to
final, only to lose to AC Milan, 2-1, with Eusebio scoring for Benfica.
By
now, it was a routine that Dukla Prague would be playing in European
competition, such was their dominance in their domestic league. In the 1963-64
edition, they started off with an 8-0 demolition of Maltese side, Valetta,
winning 6-0 in the home leg, while winning the away leg, 2-0. Harder tests were
to come, but the next round saw them pass one of those tests, when they beat
Polish side, Gornik Zabrze, 4-3 on aggregate. The quarte-finals beckoned again,
but once again, they found themselves becoming stuck at this stage. Their
opponents, German giants, Borussia Dortmund proved too strong for them over the
two legs and knocked them out, 5-3 on aggregate. It had been the third
consecutive year that Dikla had been knocked out at the quarter-final stage of
the European Cup. The next season they would have another go, after winning
their domestic league a fourth time in a row.
Unlike
the previous preliminary round matches they played, the 1964-65 edition of the
European cup started off a little bit more difficult for Dukla Pague. It was
only by the flip of a coin that the progressed to the next round. No, really,
that is actually how they progressed. After drawing 4-4 on aggregate with
Polish side Gornik Zabrze, a coin was flipped to determine who would go through
to the next round. Dukla won and they were to face the ight Real Madrid in the
next round. The game at the Santigo Benabeu was a one-sided affair, with the
Spanish side winning 4-0 on the night, with Amancio scoring a hattrick. It
meant the second leg was a bit of a formality, However, that didn’t stop the Dukla players from putting in a shift,
although they must have been deflated when in the 14th minute, Felo
made it 5-0 on aggregate to Madrid. Dukla did pull one back in the 60th
minute thanks to Geleta, who then put Dukla in front on the night in the 75th
minute. They nearly hung on to a famous win until that man again, Amancio
popped up in the 89th minute to draw the sides level on the night
and finish the tie 6-2 on aggregate to Real Madrid.
While
Dukla didn’t win the league in the 1964-65 season,
they did win the cup and therefore qualified for the Cup Winners Cup. While it
was seen as the second tier of European football, there were still strong clubs
competing in the competition. Dukla drew French side Rennes in the first round
and knocked them out, 2-0 on aggregate. It set up a tie in the next round with
Hungarian side, Budapest Honved. In what was a tightly contested two-legged
tie, the Hungarians came out on top, thanks to the away goals rule. On
aggregate, the tie finished 44 but Honved had scored three away goals to Dukla’s one.
The
next season, 1965-66, saw the club win the double, and return to European
football’s premier competition. They had only won
the league on goal difference, beating Slavia Prague to the title. In a weird
twist, the club met Norwegian club, Esbjerg once again, and once again they
dispatched them with ease, winning 6-0 on aggregate. It set up a tie with
Belgian side Anderlecht, in which they also dispatched with ease, winning that
tie, 6-2 on aggregate. Once again, the club had found itself at the
quarter-finals stage. On the three previous attempts they had failed to get
past this round, however, they were about to re-write history. The club who
they were up against was Dutch side, Ajax. The first leg, played in front of a
crowd of over 55k was drawn 1-1. Swart had scored for Ajaz (50th
min) while Mraz equalised for Dukla (61st minute). The tie was
finally poised going into the second leg. In front of just over 18k people,
Dukla took on Ajax on the 8th March, 1967. The Dutch side took te
lead in the 65th minute thanks to Swart once again. It looked like
another quarter-final deafet for DUkla, until Strunc levelled from the spot in
the 72 minute. It was 2-2 on aggregate and both teams were going for the win.
Then, in the 89th minute, Ajax’s
Soetekouw but the ball into his on net and made it 3-2 to Dukla on aggregate
and that’s the way it ended, meaning for the
first time in their history, Dukla Prague had made it to the semi-final of the
European Cup. It was there that they met Scottish club, Celtic FC. It was to be
were the European adventure ended, as the Scottish champions knocked out Dukla,
3-1 on aggregate, after a 31 win at Celtic Prk and a 0-0 draw in
Czechoslovakia.
After
this season, Dukla seemed to decline on the pitch, only picking up one trophy,
the Czechoslovakian cup in the 1968-69 season. They did not win the league
again until the 1976-77 season, when they beat Inter Bratislavia to the title
by four points. It meant a return to European football as well, however this
was cut short when they were knocked out in the first round by French side,
Nantes. It was by the away goal rule, as Nantes had drawn and scored in
Czechoslovakia, 1-1 and Dukla had only managed to get a 0-0 draw in France.
Dukla
seemed to be starting some kind of revival, as the finished runners-up the next
season and then won their tenth title in the 1978-79 season. Their final league
title triumph came in the 1981-82 season, when they beat Banik Ostrava to the
title by four points. After that, however, they were reduced to winning just
three more Czechoslovakian cups, in the seasons, 1982-83, 1984-85 and 1989-90,
with the latter being the last major trophy they won under their original form.
The
90’s proved to be one of the worst decades in the clubs
history, with the club being relegated in the 1993-94 season, finishing rock
bottom of the league, But the club didn’t
play in the second tier that next season, instead playing in the third tier,
and still not being able to gain promotion. In the end, in 1996, the club
merged with second division side FC Portal Pribram. The new club then later
became known as 1.FK Pribram.
For
years the name Dukla Prague was lost and not used, bar an amateur team who
played under it’s name, loosely. But in 2006 it was
announced that Jakubcovice were to be taken over and renamed and rebranded as
DUkla Prague, and so the name has continued. The club have since returned to
the top division of Czech football since 2011.
The
most complicated part of Dukla Prague’s
history is determining who is the continuation of the original club, with FK
Viagem Pribram laying claim to that, however, there is a Dukla Prague that play
in the Czech National League, which is the second tier. The wear the same
colours and have the same crest as the original entity but are not their
predecessor. It is a strange one, because when I first started researching
about this club I had to split everything into different sections as it felt
like it was all intertwined somehow, but weirdly enough, it wasn’t. The other things to point out about the original
Dukla Prague is that they had seven players represent them for Czechoslovakia
when they reached the 1962 World Cup final, something of a major feat for the
club. They are also the current record holders for appearances in European cup
competition to come from Czech Republic (And maybe Slovakia as well). I also
have to give Josep Masapust a mention, as when I did ask fans about Dukla
Prague, his name always came up. I knew who he was, but what he did for that
club alone was amazing. Making 386 appearances from the years between
1952-1968, scoring 79 goals and helping that Czechoslavkian side make it to the
World Cup final in 1962, he is somewhat overshadowed or forgotten about when
the discussion of ‘Who is the best player to ever play the
game’ conversation comes up. He has definitely not been
forgotten by the Dukla Prague fans though. In the end, it was one of those
clubs that were unbelievably successful in the past, but when it went all wrong
on the pitch, in the 90’s it seemed like they had no answer to
it. Instead, they folded, leaving behind a club who had won eleven league
titles and eight domestic cups. Whatever entity they hold now, I don’t think they will replicate that success again, and
certainly won’t be getting to a European Cup quarter
final anytime soon. Not that they would have gotten past that stage anyway.