Vladimír Jarý

"We were already playing for the title a year before '74. Just to give you an idea, we flew, no, we took the train there. We arrived on a Saturday, it was supposed to be played at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, and TV was supposed to be there. But those scoundrels in Prešov, the bastards, they thought of running the hydrant on the clay and flooding it. The referees said it was an irregular pitch and the TV went away. We played in the afternoon which harmed us. The referees? The referees. We lost the title. Too bad we didn't go there just for a trip, we needed to get at least a point. We lost by seven in the last minute. Well, maybe I'm digressing."

"I lived in Litvínov until I was twenty years old, so, I'll say it from today's point of view, it was a disaster, fogs were the order of the day. The mines were uncovered, and they were smoking. The second thing was the chemical plant between Litvínov and the Most, it was constantly smelly. Mostly in Litvínov, it hit us. There were fogs where you really couldn't see a step ahead of you. It's hard to imagine. I'll give you an example. When we were going from Most to Litvínov by car, one was walking in front of the car, and as there were bollards, he was holding on to the bollards. Because he couldn't see anything either, and he was afraid of stepping on the wrong one, and there was a light shining on him from the car. I'm just going to mention this extreme, really even in Most, I went to school there, there were fogs in Most too. It wasn't very healthy there."

"I don't know if you have the information that each team had one member of the ČSTV Central Committee assigned to them at the Olympics? That he was supervising them? An eye? An eye, if I may say so. Imagine that we found out he had a tape recorder in his suitcase. Collegiate sports are always fun. If it's not fun, it's not worth it. Somebody found out he had a tape recorder in his suitcase, and imagine this guy, I can't remember his name, I don't even want to, he had a hump, poor guy, he was short and he had this blemish here. So I guess you can imagine in collegiate sports how it works then, the titles and the names. I don't know if it's worth saying anymore. Tell me. Anyway, I'll put it this way. It's just that Vícha was a phenomenon, and I've since come to recognize him as more than just a handball capacity. Vícha swept the locker room clean of the guy and also fired the other coach, Šesták, who was also partisanly involved, and locked him. And I won't tell you what went on there, I've never experienced that in my life. Like a goading against the Russians in general? It still gives me the creeps, what he could say was just unbelievable. When I think of magic, it was nothing compared to that. He brought it up, not everybody had it in them, but most of us fell for it. And the goalies caught three sevens. Then, of course, they complained about it, both the other coach, Šesták, and the Eye. It turned out the way it did, we beat them and we knew we had to beat them 12-10 by at least two, and then always by more than two. We won 15 to 12, I still remember that. They tied with Sweden in the regular season, that helped too. That made us the group winners and we played the final. I'll never forget the Russians, what a beating that was. I will never forget what the atmosphere was like, I have never experienced such an atmosphere since."