Wednesday, October 15, 2014

COLD FRONT IN WARSAW



The papers stacked on the makeshift negotiating table had all been signed, as had a small tower of documents promising the Polish delegates more washing machines than they could possibly make proper use of. Paper cups half full of Polish vodka and tiny cups of tar-like coffee littered the shiny surface. Men in military fatigues moved listlessly in the background. Manchester City secretary Bernard Halford wrung his hands together, stood and prepared to shake hands with a row of officials on a deal that was utterly unique.

Ex-army colonel and Poland World Cup captain Kaziu Deyna would be coming to Manchester after all.

City’s squad these days comprises almost only international players, but three decades ago, it was far from the case. 35 years ago this week, a very different kind of international player was stepping out for City and – after a slow and difficult start -- winning over the locals with his grace and commitment.

On 13th October 1979, Polish World Cup captain Kaziu Deyna scored the winner against European champions Nottingham Forest at a packed Maine Road. Richard Bott’s Daily Express report on the match began thus: “The fellow whose mischievous wit prompted him to send up City in a local newspaper advertisement as ‘a set of clockwork clowns’ for sale at 5 pounds, must number among the world’s biggest fools this morning...”

Malcolm Allison's stuttering first campaign back in charge of the Blues was in danger of falling somewhat flat until Deyna stepped in and influenced the plot with winning goals in the Forest and Middlesbrough home games within four days. Some will remember him swinging on the crossbar after his late winner against Boro in midweek, but more will recall his fantastic display against champions Forest.

The Pole's match winning performances lifted City to mid-table, in those days a not unreasonable level of achievement for a club used to sliding casually from one disaster to another under the frivolous second coming of Allison.

Deyna, hailing from a tiny village in northern Poland, was a player of consummate skill, referred to on one occasion by West Germany captain Franz Beckenbauer as the complete footballer. At City he was to bed down with a gathering of team mates from a distinctly lower calibre, but the patient probing and effortless passing soon won him more time and space on the pitch and raucous praise rolling down from the terraces. His style, at once casual and effortlessly effective was a little like a taller more languid version of what David Silva brings to City in the modern era.

He really was that good.

The difference between 1979 and 2015 was that Deyna shared a midfield berth with Tony Henry and Ged Keegan, while Silva can rely on Yaya Touré and Fernandinho for assistance. Never underestimate the necessity for others to be on your own wavelength in order to look the part.

Deyna sneaks onto the official team photo in Football Monthly wearing his tie and jacket
It was said of the Polish captain that he had been born with two brains, one in his head and one in his feet. Certainly in the brainless muddle of English top flight footbal in the late seventies, he needed both brains to be working at their swiftest to keep him ahead of the omnipresent hatchet men that each side in division one employed to do their midfield dirty business for them.

Before his much heralded arrival in England, Deyna had led Poland to Olympic gold in 1972, played his part in his country's 1974 qualification ahead of England -- the Wembley draw between the two countries got cautious old Alf Ramsey the sack -- helped orchestrate a magnificent Polish effort in West Germany that summer, when his country surprised everyone by beating Argentina and Italy on their way to a well deserved 3rd place and graced both the 1978 World Cup in Argentina and the midfield of Legia Warsaw for many years without ever truly being appreciated by the home fans.

This lack of appreciation on the part of his fellow Poles slowly developed into maltreatment, with Deyna verbally abused in the green shirt of Legia and even the red of his national side much as Beckenbauer had been in Germany for representing the hated aristocrats of Bayern Munich.

This was part of the reason why, at the age of 32, he would finally receive an opportunity to play abroad, at the time forbidden in Communist Bloc countries. The irony of Deyna’s transfer was that City’s first target had actually been his younger international team mate Zbigniew Boniek, who had not only had a wonderful World Cup in Argentina (and would go on to really shine at Spain '82, leading to a high profile career scoring goals at Juventus), but had also been responsible almost single-handedly for knocking City out of the UEFA Cup in 1977 with his club side Widzew Lodz. Boniek's transfer was rendered impossible owing to the player’s age, but Deyna's was eventually sanctioned by the Polish authorities.

In the end the package that City successfully negotiated for Deyna inolved around 100,000 pounds plus a small hill of domestic appliances and office equipment that were tricky to obtain in Poland. City had their man, Legia had their Rank Xerox photocopiers.

In the first week of November 1978 the Manchester Evening News published a series of articles entitled ‘The Deyna Dossier’, with ace reporter Peter Gardner returning from the snow-clad steppes to report in hushed tones of this mystical import. There were black and white images of snow clad streets with huddled groups that might have leapt straight from a spy novel. The fuss was immense.

Despite not speaking English and finding it difficult to settle, Deyna managed a total of 38 appearances over a period of three seasons, an amount that surely would have been higher had Allison and others shown more faith in his ability.

His stay at City was punctuated by appearances in a side that was as solid as gossamer thread. He poked goals where he could, threaded passes through impossible angles and then watched as his team mates trotted into each other and collapsed. A 3-2 home defeat by a Wolves side months away from relegation and a repeat score at Maine Road against a Chelsea side so desperately decrepit that master striker Peter Osgood played at centre half, meant that Deyna's introduction to English football was an impossible muddle of disaster and farce. Even his debut in yet another home defeat to Ipswich Town featured Kenny Clements breaking his leg in an inoccuous looking challenge.

Eventually Deyna moved on to the United States to play in NASL, where he made a home for himself and his family, later going into coaching. However, on 1st September 1989 a car being driven by the ex-City star was involved in a fatal accident, as he failed to stop -- or even brake -- on seeing a parked truck ahead of him. The quiet, unassuming and modest star from Poland was dead with just 50 cents in his pocket. Stories quickly circulated that alcohol had been the cause of the accident and that a police breathaliser proved it. Inside the back of the car a total of 22 footballs were found. If nothing else, in what seems to have been a life deteriorating swiftly towards its sad conclusion, Kaziu Deyna still had a love of the sport, which had brought him fame if not fortune.

For all City supporters lucky enough to have seen him play that day against Nottingham Forest, memories of a fantastically balanced player persist. That he left us at such a premature stage remains a sadness which will never properly be cured.

Kaziu Deyna, gone but not forgotten.

Peter Swales has just sold another Grundig

4 comments:

  1. Definitely under-used at City. He was sheer quality. A Rolls-Royce player with style and grace.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Couldn't agree more, John. A great shame his skills were not used on a more frequent basis during nearly three years at Maine Road. Interestingly, despite this, his son Norbert speaks warmly of their time in Manchester and told me a couple of years ago that his father always looked back fondly on his time with City, something the rest of us do too, I guess.

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  2. please,can you upload the rest of the official team photo?thank you very much,greetings from Greece..

    ReplyDelete
  3. It won't fit!! If you are who I think you are, I can email it to you...

    ReplyDelete

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