Moscow support dilemma

Away from the world of Manchester City, I face, in five weeks or so, the prospect of moving to a new job. Or at least, having taken up the new job in the St Petersburg office of the law firm in which I'm now employed, I'll move to the head office Moscow. I've led a fairly itinerant life, in fact, but wherever I've been I've always tried to get into the local football. Moscow offers plenty of choice in this regard, so I'm currently reflecting on which team to adopt.



A simple choice would be just not to pick anyone. After all, I'll be retaining strong links with St Petersburg. I prefer the city on the Neva, whose inhabitants have a healthy disregard for all things Muscovite, and I've spent the last three years since I returned to this country loosely following local team Zenit. And I will keep on taking an interest in the team. Owned by Gazprom, they're berated by others for being the current moneybags outfit, so there's a pleasing symmetry with my first love over in Manchester. And, a bit like Newcastle United, as the only club in the city, they become a symbol of metropolitan pride, a beacon for the region. Given that their city is, and will remain, my adopted home, their place in my affections is safe.

Even so, if I'm in Moscow for a lot of the time, I want a team to watch there as well. There's no substitute for live football, and rather follow than a corinthian "may the best team win" spectating approach, I prefer to spice things up with a modicum of partisanship.

For those who don't know, Moscow currently has four top flight sides. Spartak were the most successful Russian side during the Soviet era and second overall in the USSR to Ukrainians of Dinamo Kiev. The red and whites then won nine of the first ten Russian championships after the Soviet Union crumbled. The last of those nine was in 2001, and they haven't won it since.

In that time, CSKA and Lokomotiv have been more successful, but the last three years provincial sides in the form of Zenit and Rubin Kazan, certain Georgi Kinkladze's last professional club). This term, Russia's last summer campaign before a crazy switch to winter, Zenit are in pole position with less than a couple of months remaining.

The fourth club is Dinamo, who were hot on the heels of their Kiev namesakes and Spartak in the Soviet days - and, alongside Kiev were the only side never to be relegated from the Soviet top league. They faded, however, in the post-Soviet era, they've been a consistent disappointment since, even when backed by extensive funds. This season, for instance, funded by VTB Bank, they've paired the German Kevin Kuranyi with Ukraine's Andrei Voronin, and lie in the bottom half of the table.

I've only lived in Moscow for one year of the six in total that I've spent in Russia, and in those days, back in 1998/9, it was Dinamo who earned my favours. As a City fan back home, there was lots to identify with. In our current petrodollar incarnation, it seems a long time ago, but this was when

Dinamo likewise were underperforming pretty drastically relative to their history and name (they nearly got relegated, IIRC); they hadn't won the league since 1976 (the year of our last trophy too); they played in blue; and the great Lev Yashin had played for them, plus his Soviet national team predecessor and fellow legend Alexey 'Tiger' Khomich. (City had been historically famous for great 'keepers in Swift and Trautmann, and Yashin had said that there were only two great goalkeepers in the world, himself and Trautmann).

The biggest similarity of all was that their rivals, who played in red, were the best supported team in the country and were, at the time, winning everything all the time. Spartak claimed ten of the first eleven Russian championships after the breakup of the Soviet league.

I saw Spartak a couple of times not long after I arrived in Moscow. First, with a mate visiting from England, I went to the ramshackle old Lokomotiv Stadium, before its renovation, where they played their league fixtures at the time. I watched them hand out a 7-0 battering to the hapless Tiumen' (who finished the season with a single-figure points tally). And I was at Luzhniki with about 65,000 others on a fabulous night when they came from behind to defeat Real Madrid in the Champions League.

This kind of consistency and success was obviously not for me, and I was drawn to Dinamo instinctively. My first viewing of them was in a UEFA Cup tie against Skonto Riga in front of about 5,000, I'd guess. They drew 2-2 thanks to an improbable procession of incredible misses and a couple of pieces of comedy defending and I was hooked. This was what I was used to!

So on a Sunday afternoon, if they were at home, I'd usually walk the sort distance from my place o Tverskaya metro and get the green line up to Dinamo. I used to go in the south west corner of the ground, over by the Leningradskoye Shosse. I remember being able to get a couple of bottles of Baltika 3 before the game down under the stand and another with a shashlyk at half time. I remember the drunk who would stand on his seat at the back row and, swaying merrily, shout abuse - but extremely entertainingly - at his own players. I remember the useless Nigerian centre forward they used to have who seemed to miss a couple of sitters every game without fail.

The problem with picking up where I left off is that Dinamo these days have moved out of their traditional stadium on the eastern side of the Leningradskoye Shosse. They should be back by 2013 or so, but until then they're playing at Arena Khimki, in the town of (surprise, surprise) Khimki up to the north and just outside the city boundary. It's not easy to get to, and to be honest I don't fancy it.

CSKA are also playing at Khimki until they build their own stadium, so I can't adopt them either. In any event, for some reason I don't feel drawn either to them or to Lokomotiv, and for someone of my footballing persuasion, Spartak are right out. You still often hear them referred to as the narodnaya komanda, or people's team, owing to the relative lack of political clout behind them in Soviet days. They strike me as nothing so much as a Russian version of Manchester United, so their chances of enlisting my support are simply nil.

Instead, I think I'm going to seek out an attraction from the lower divisions in the form of Moscow's fifth club with a historical top flight pedigree. In connection with a project I still hope to complete, I've recently become acquainted with the history of Torpedo Moscow. The club went into a decline in the post-Soviet period, losing not only its identity but almost going out of existence. Indeed, one could debate at some length who the real Torpedo Moscow actually is. I'll leave that on one side for now and instead go into it another time in another piece: it's an interesting story, and it says a lot about modern Russia, not just its football.

For the meantime, though, I'll stick to the idea in broad terms of hoping to witness a renaissance for the black and whites. I'll leave my top flight affections undividedly to Zenit unless and until Torpedo force the issue - but I'll hope against hope that they do it quickly!