28/07: History of Mighty Migthy FC VOVA!!!
Denis wrote english history of mighty mighty club from Vilnius. I put it here now and later it will be on the right side of web site near Photo link.
FC VOVA
it all started in the year 2004. few punks posted message on lithuanian punk-hardcore page hardcore.lt calling for Sunday football, and after a crowd illegally gathered on the little pitch of the local christian school, that was it, the team was started. a lots of different people came to play football. boys, girls, lithuanians, russians, poles. climbing over the fences every time to get inside and playing together the best game in the world got everybody together. we would play few times a week for some time and then we had our first outer-city match versus a team of Kaunas punkrock scene. and we won 7-0! (and lost 1-8 playing later in Kaunas, but who remembers that anyway..). after a month or so went to TABUNS, the DIY open air fest in Latvia. we needed a name and names like „The Players“ or „No Logo“ or „FC Parquet“ were considered. but after all the discussion we came up with the idea that it might also sound nice, like all these bands going under the beautiful girl names like SHORA, NORA, BORA and somebody shouted „let‘s name it FC VOVA!“, referring to our goalkeeper of that time, who would let in a way too much balls, but was nice and funny nevertheless. so, it was done. we officially became FC VOVA. we though of something behind it as well, like „Vilnius Open Voting for Anarchy“ or smth alike, but then we just let it be. so, we went to TABUNS, made our way to quarterfinals which we lost to the winner of the tournament as we learned later. but anyway it was a success for us! so we went on!
although it was a bit hard to gather players together during summertime, but later on it was all right and so we went to another fest in Latvia, called ZABADAKS this time. we made out way from group there the first day, but due to a huge rain, tournament was moved to the next day. and the morning after made us champions, as we were the only team to show after yesterday parties because of some minor straightedge influence inside of the team. so finally we had our first international trophy! the experience of Latvian tournaments made us organize some too. we did it in 2005 and 2006 during DIY DAROM festivals in Lithuania. first time we made it to finals, winning in semifinals against our biggest rivals/friends from Kaunas “Tri Poloski”, but were defeated there 0:3. and second time we also made it to finals, but due to shut down of the festivals after some trouble with local mafia, we didn’t finish the tournament, as we went to fight the fuckers.
from spring 2005 there were rumors the amateur football league is about to appear in Vilnius, going by the name of SFL (Sunday Footbal League). we didn’t make our mind at first, but then later on we decided to join in. we held a benefit show, consisting of bands with our players involved ("Va Taip Vat", "Pendelis", "Toro Bravo", "Frekenbok", "dr.Green", "Sloppy Livin`" ) and got money for the participation fee. still it was not enough, so we found a sponsor – Eglė, the sister of our captain Paulius! she was so kind to us that she just donated some money we were short of, so we were (and still are!) really thankful for that and we showed our respect to her making stencils of her name on our play t-shirts. as it appeared alter it was right decision to join the league, bringing us even more friends and fans. now league expanded and started to make all the professional rules and demands, so sometimes it sucks and we begin to wonder if we should continue or we should try to set up some 100% DIY amateur league like our friends from Minsk did. but nevertheless we are still playing in SFL for now and still making our play better there every season.
during these years some people left, some people joined in, some made their way to the fan sector. which by the way is one of the best in Lithuania, including our professional teams! they would come to every match in 40-50 people and on the cup games there might be up to 200! now there three so called “firms” - KOSMOS, VOVERĖS and BB United. KOSMOS is a firm of newbie fans, who appeared on the sector after their friends became new FC VOVA players. VOVERĖS is a girls only firm, making their way in male dominated football. and the BB United is the oldest and still most active firms consisted of few ex-players and first fans.
after we grew a bit like a team and collective we made new contacts with likeminded people from all around and that is how we started to go to the international tournaments of all kinds – from the huge Mondialli Antirazzisti in Italy to little self made tournaments in Minsk. we’ve been to Latvia, Belorussia, Italy, Germany, Belgium, England, Sweden, Spain, Holland and even Brasil, making friends and fans all over the world! we are really grateful for everyone who helped us out to make our way to these places (cheers Easton!) and we hope to set up some tournament like that and host you all in the future!
our team is not only a sport formation. people coming to play or support us are from various cultures (we had Portugal, Turkish, Swedish and people from other places playing for us) and also from various social context, so we all go through social transformation, becoming more open minded and aware of things like racism or other forms of discrimination, appearing in football world and everyday life. we’re going by the love football – hate fascism slogan and that makes our position clear for all the nazis and such garbage. also the most beautiful thing is that the FC VOVA made closer people involved, made us know each other better, so we can trust the others and do a lots of different things together, connected to football or not. like the blood donation we’re about to have when we’ll back from Germany or this piece of paper, where we tried to do our best to say how we love that game and all the people involved in the DIY football world! ole!
FC VOVA
it all started in the year 2004. few punks posted message on lithuanian punk-hardcore page hardcore.lt calling for Sunday football, and after a crowd illegally gathered on the little pitch of the local christian school, that was it, the team was started. a lots of different people came to play football. boys, girls, lithuanians, russians, poles. climbing over the fences every time to get inside and playing together the best game in the world got everybody together. we would play few times a week for some time and then we had our first outer-city match versus a team of Kaunas punkrock scene. and we won 7-0! (and lost 1-8 playing later in Kaunas, but who remembers that anyway..). after a month or so went to TABUNS, the DIY open air fest in Latvia. we needed a name and names like „The Players“ or „No Logo“ or „FC Parquet“ were considered. but after all the discussion we came up with the idea that it might also sound nice, like all these bands going under the beautiful girl names like SHORA, NORA, BORA and somebody shouted „let‘s name it FC VOVA!“, referring to our goalkeeper of that time, who would let in a way too much balls, but was nice and funny nevertheless. so, it was done. we officially became FC VOVA. we though of something behind it as well, like „Vilnius Open Voting for Anarchy“ or smth alike, but then we just let it be. so, we went to TABUNS, made our way to quarterfinals which we lost to the winner of the tournament as we learned later. but anyway it was a success for us! so we went on!
although it was a bit hard to gather players together during summertime, but later on it was all right and so we went to another fest in Latvia, called ZABADAKS this time. we made out way from group there the first day, but due to a huge rain, tournament was moved to the next day. and the morning after made us champions, as we were the only team to show after yesterday parties because of some minor straightedge influence inside of the team. so finally we had our first international trophy! the experience of Latvian tournaments made us organize some too. we did it in 2005 and 2006 during DIY DAROM festivals in Lithuania. first time we made it to finals, winning in semifinals against our biggest rivals/friends from Kaunas “Tri Poloski”, but were defeated there 0:3. and second time we also made it to finals, but due to shut down of the festivals after some trouble with local mafia, we didn’t finish the tournament, as we went to fight the fuckers.
from spring 2005 there were rumors the amateur football league is about to appear in Vilnius, going by the name of SFL (Sunday Footbal League). we didn’t make our mind at first, but then later on we decided to join in. we held a benefit show, consisting of bands with our players involved ("Va Taip Vat", "Pendelis", "Toro Bravo", "Frekenbok", "dr.Green", "Sloppy Livin`" ) and got money for the participation fee. still it was not enough, so we found a sponsor – Eglė, the sister of our captain Paulius! she was so kind to us that she just donated some money we were short of, so we were (and still are!) really thankful for that and we showed our respect to her making stencils of her name on our play t-shirts. as it appeared alter it was right decision to join the league, bringing us even more friends and fans. now league expanded and started to make all the professional rules and demands, so sometimes it sucks and we begin to wonder if we should continue or we should try to set up some 100% DIY amateur league like our friends from Minsk did. but nevertheless we are still playing in SFL for now and still making our play better there every season.
during these years some people left, some people joined in, some made their way to the fan sector. which by the way is one of the best in Lithuania, including our professional teams! they would come to every match in 40-50 people and on the cup games there might be up to 200! now there three so called “firms” - KOSMOS, VOVERĖS and BB United. KOSMOS is a firm of newbie fans, who appeared on the sector after their friends became new FC VOVA players. VOVERĖS is a girls only firm, making their way in male dominated football. and the BB United is the oldest and still most active firms consisted of few ex-players and first fans.
after we grew a bit like a team and collective we made new contacts with likeminded people from all around and that is how we started to go to the international tournaments of all kinds – from the huge Mondialli Antirazzisti in Italy to little self made tournaments in Minsk. we’ve been to Latvia, Belorussia, Italy, Germany, Belgium, England, Sweden, Spain, Holland and even Brasil, making friends and fans all over the world! we are really grateful for everyone who helped us out to make our way to these places (cheers Easton!) and we hope to set up some tournament like that and host you all in the future!
our team is not only a sport formation. people coming to play or support us are from various cultures (we had Portugal, Turkish, Swedish and people from other places playing for us) and also from various social context, so we all go through social transformation, becoming more open minded and aware of things like racism or other forms of discrimination, appearing in football world and everyday life. we’re going by the love football – hate fascism slogan and that makes our position clear for all the nazis and such garbage. also the most beautiful thing is that the FC VOVA made closer people involved, made us know each other better, so we can trust the others and do a lots of different things together, connected to football or not. like the blood donation we’re about to have when we’ll back from Germany or this piece of paper, where we tried to do our best to say how we love that game and all the people involved in the DIY football world! ole!