FC Daugava Riga

FC Daugava Riga is a former Soviet and Latvian club from Riga. It participated in the Soviet championships. In different years the club represented various Riga factories VEF, railcar building, electro-mechanical.

The club was founded in 1944. It had its debut in the Latvian championship in 1946 by finishing 5th among 8 teams. In 1948 Daugava joined FC Dinamo Rīga as the second team from Latvia to play in the Soviet First League. For the 1949 season thanks to a changes in the tournament system Daugava was promoted to the Soviet Top League where it managed to remain for 4 seasons until being relegated in 1952.

The following years brought more and more disappointments for Daugava with the team failing to leave an impression among Class B squads. However, in 1960 the team once again had the opportunity to play against the top Soviet teams – thanks to another decision from above. The first season there was by far the best – the 12th position among 22 teams, including 2 wins against the eventual league winners – Torpedo Moscow. This season was one of the best for Georgijs Smirnovs, it also was one of the best for the Lithuanian goalkeeper Vladas Tučkus who had won the Soviet Championship in 1956 with Spartak Moscow but had trouble recapturing his previous form afterwards.

However the next 2 seasons in Class A were less successful and in 1962 Daugava was relegated back to Class B (although it was officially renamed to Class A Second Group, essentially it was the second league). In 1967 Daugava was very close to promotion to Class A – it finished second after Dynamo Kirovabad and a win with a four-goal difference in the last match would have put Daugava first, however a missed penalty from Gunārs Ulmanis and a rather bleak second half of the last match didn't let that happen.

The failure to get a promotion to the top division brought changes to the Daugava team with the results getting worse from year to year and in 1971 Daugava was relegated to the Second League (third division of Soviet football) where it joined another Latvian team – Zvejnieks Liepāja. Climbing back the first league proved to be a tough task – despite being close to the top every season only in 1975 Daugava managed to get a promotion. That season saw the emergence of Sergey Shavlo who later became a key player for Spartak Moscow. However, after just a year Daugava was back in the second division and remained there until 1981 when under the management of Jānis Skredelis it proved itself significantly stronger than the rest of the second division squads.

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