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FC Desna (Chernihiv): History
About the club
Desna is a professional Ukrainian football club based in the city of Chernihiv. The club plays in the Ukrainian Premier League. It was founded in 1960. Until June 15, 2010 it had professional status. In July of the same year the club received it again, but under a different name.
The highest achievement of the club in the Soviet period is reaching the 1/8 final of the USSR Cup in 1965. In 1982 the team won the silver medal in the championship of the Ukrainian SSR. The best performance in the Ukrainian championship is the 2nd place in the First League in the 2016/17 season, in the Ukrainian Cup - reaching the 1/4 finals in the 2013/14 season.
Home games are played at the Yuri Gagarin Stadium (12,060 seats).
1960-1970
The team was founded in 1960 under the name Avangard and was included in the Ukrainian zone of the USSR Class B championship. Oleksandr Shchanov, a former Dynamo Kiev player, was invited to become the team's head coach. In February, Avangard took part in the winter championship of the Chernihiv region, and the team played its first official match on April 17, 1960 in Kirovohrad against Zvezda (0-3). In the next match, Avangard drew with Kiev Arsenal (0-0), then lost at home to Vinnytsia Lokomotiv (0-6). In May 1960 Oleksandr Shchanov was fired. His assistant Anatolii Zhyhan, who was confirmed in this position in July 1960, performed the duties of the head coach. In its first season in the USSR championship, the team finished 16th out of 17 teams in the 1st zone of the Ukrainian SSR, class B.
The following year the team was renamed Desna. Yosyp Lifshyts was appointed as the head coach. Before the start of the season, the team participated in the tournament of the Central Council of Avangard DST, where it reached the finals. At the end of the championship Desna took 5th place in its group and 10th place in the final of the Ukrainian SSR (class B). Among all Ukrainian teams of the USSR championship, the Chernihiv team took 13th place.
In 1960-1961 the goalkeeper of the team was the later famous master Viktor Bannikov. After the Chernihiv team drew 1-1 in a friendly match with the Swedish team Hammarby on October 22, 1961, in the presence of the Dynamo Kyiv coach Viacheslav Soloviov, Bannikov was invited to join the Kyiv club.
In 1963-1965 the team finished in the middle of the table and did not compete for the top places. The team's performance in the 1965 USSR Cup was successful, when the Ukrainian club reached the 1/8 finals, defeating such teams as Shakhtar (Kryvyi Rih), Avangard (Zhovti Vody), Shakhtar (Oleksandriia), SKA (Kyiv), Shynnyk (Yaroslavl) and Naftovyk (Baku). Desna's victorious march was stopped only in the 1/8 final by Kazakh Kairat - Desna lost 3-4 in Alma-Ata, but this success remained the highest achievement of the Chernihiv team in the history of their appearances in the USSR Cup. In 1965 Desna striker Yukhym Shkolnykov was called up to the Ukrainian SSR national team, which toured India, Burma and Thailand. According to the results of the friendly matches, Shkolnikov became the team's top scorer with 8 goals out of 13.
In the following season the team fought for the leadership in the first zone of the Ukrainian SSR, Class B. The winners had the opportunity to compete for promotion to the second group, Class A (later transformed into the First League). "Desna was beaten only by Dynamo Khmelnytskyi and finished 4th in the Ukrainian SSR championship in Class B. One of the team's best players in 1965-1966 was goalkeeper Oleksandr Hovorov, who joined Shakhtar Donetsk during the 1966 season. After the end of the 1966 season, three Desna players - Yukhym Shkolnykov, Vladyslav Idzkovskyi and Mykola Nenakhov - were called up to the Ukrainian SSR youth team, which was coached by former Dynamo Kiev goalkeeper Anton Idzkovskyi. In November and December the team played several friendly matches in Mali, Guinea and Senegal.
In 1968, Desna finished 4th in the Ukrainian SSR championship, earning a ticket to the second group of Class A. In the 1970 championship, the team featured midfielders Andrii Biba, a former Dynamo Kyiv player, and Serhii Morozov, who later played for Zorya Voroshylovhrad and CSKA Moscow. Their coach was Oleh Bazylevych. Chernihiv reached a good 11th place among 22 teams of the Ukrainian and Belarusian SSR, but at the end of the year the team was liquidated by the decision of the new head of the Chernihiv region. Instead, in 1972 Kiev SKA began to play home games in Chernihiv: in 1972 the club played under the name "Chernihiv City Team", and in 1973-1975 - SC Chernihiv.
The second period (1977-2010)
In 1977 Desna was revived by the efforts of Yukhym Shkolnikov, who in 1976 won the Ukrainian SSR championship among sports teams with Khimik Chernihiv. Thanks to this victory, the Chernihiv team was eligible to participate in the second league of the USSR championship. In 1977 Desna, whose team consisted of former Khimik players, was promoted to the second league.
In 1981 the team was joined by 17-year-old stopper Oleh Kuznetsov (he was invited to Dynamo by Valerii Lobanovskyi in 1983) and 28-year-old Anatolii Veretynskyi, a veteran of Lokomotiv Vinnytsia and Moscow. As a result of the 1982 championship, Desna, ranked second in the Ukrainian Second League zone under the leadership of Yukhym Shkolnikov, won the silver medal in the Ukrainian championship. This was Desna's last significant achievement in the Soviet era: until 1988, the team did not finish higher than 20th in the Second Division.
After the declaration of independence, Desna played in the first division of the Ukrainian championship until the 1993-94 season, when it finished 20th and dropped to the second division. In the second league the Chernihiv team was among the best, and in the championship of the 1996-97 season the club won its group and returned to the first league for two years, after which it was relegated to the second league again.
Every year the team was among the favorites for promotion - in 2002-03 Desna finished third and the next two seasons - second. Coach Oleksandr Tomakh managed to get the team into the first division, but was sacked in 2006/07 due to unsatisfactory results in the first division - the club finished 14th out of 19 teams. On August 23, 2007, Oleksiy Savchenko, a public figure and chairman of the NGO "For Chernihiv!", became the new owner of the club.
In the 2007/08 season Desna finished 4th in the Premier League, the highest ranking in the club's history. On October 23, 2008, when the club was one of the outsiders at the beginning of the new season, Desna president Oleksiy Savchenko made a scandalous statement about the reason for the previous season's success: "It was not Desna that played, it was my money and my ambitions. Each match cost me from 5 to 15 thousand dollars. I can name the referees who took the money and the people who gave it to them. When I stopped paying them, the sporting result became the result that the players deserve today". On November 21, following a meeting of its executive committee, the FFU temporarily suspended the defendants in the case (5 referees were among the suspects) and ordered that all materials be handed over to the Chernihiv Oblast Prosecutor's Office. In November 2008, Oleksiy Savchenko announced the sale of 50% of the Chernihiv club for 10 million UAH - the co-owner was Pavlo Klymets, a member of the Party of Regions and owner of the Olimp group of companies. This deal became the most expensive sale of a football club in the history of the Ukrainian Premier League.
On February 9, 2009, Savchenko's Desna partner transferred the right to participate in the Ukrainian football championship to Valeriy Korotkov's Desna Football Club from Rivne. It was difficult for Korotkov to manage the club's financial needs alone, and on May 13, 2009, Oleksandr Povorozniuk, CEO of Agrofirma Pyatikhatska LLC, became the club's owner and president. At the end of May, Povorozniuk reached an agreement with the club's former owner Oleksiy Savchenko on joint financing.
In 2010, Desna began to experience serious financial difficulties. The team was unable to make it to the final round of the 2009-2010 championship, and despite finishing eighth at the end of the season, on June 15, 2010, the FFU Appeals Committee refused to grant Desna a professional license for the 2010-11 season, and the club was expelled from the PFL and ceased to exist.
2010-2018
However, almost immediately, thanks to the city authorities and the new owners, a legally new organization, SFK Desna Chernihiv, was created, and on July 9, 2010, the Professional Football League admitted the club to the Second Division. At the same time, the team was formed from scratch a few days before the start of the championship. In the first official match of the season, only 14 players were announced for Desna, including only one player from the previous season, Artem Antonov, who was only an occasional substitute this season. Nevertheless, the new management managed to gradually improve the club's performance. During the championship, the team almost completely changed its lineup, and as a result, it fought for a long time to return to the first division, but in the end there was a decline, and the team finished fifth in Group A of the second division.
The following season, Desna finished second in Group A and qualified for a playoff match for the First League against the second team in Group B, Avangard Kramatorsk, but lost the match 0-1 and remained in the Second League again.
In the 2012/2013 season, Desna was confidently among the leaders and after defeating Slavutych 3-1, entered the first league ahead of schedule.
Since 2013 FC Desna has been participating in competitions among the teams of the First Football League of Ukraine. In the 2013/2014 season, FC Desna took the 5th place and made it to the 1/4 finals of the Ukrainian Cup. In the following season, the Chernihiv team also finished in fifth place, and in the cup they did not make it to the 1/16 finals, losing to Dnipro 0-1.
The 2015-16 season was not as successful, with only the eighth place, and in the Ukrainian Cup in the 1/16 finals they lost to Vorskla on penalties 2-4.
The 2016/17 season was the most successful in the team's history. The club earned an early ticket to the Premier League by finishing second overall, but failed to pass the certification and remained in the First Division. In the Ukrainian Cup, Chernihiv reached the 1/8th final, losing to Dnipro 6-7 on penalties.
On July 25, 2018, the team made its home debut in the Premier League. After Denys Favorov's goal against Shakhtar Donetsk was mistakenly disallowed by the referee, Chernihiv conceded two goals and lost 2-0. On July 29, 2018 the team played its first away match, defeating Mariupol 4-1.
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