Jindřich Krepindl

"I have to say that such commitment, such combativeness and such brotherhood, playing for each other, we ... I've never experienced that. It was a bit of an advantage that one of their key players, Maximov, did something to his ankle. Adidas made him a special shoe overnight for his foot, and he appeared with it, but obviously couldn't play. But if one Maximov is out, four equally good ones will come on in his place. They had an incredible selection and it didn't matter if he was there or not. First of all, I have to say that the Russians underestimated us. They came into the dressing room with bags from the malls, some witnesses claimed to have seen them running around Munich buying gifts, shopping all afternoon, and then came straight to the game. They thought they were going to beat us, they were sure of it, that's for sure. They found out during half time that it wasn't going to be that easy, that we were going to be tenacious, and as it rolled over it was still a draw. It was only a goal away, it was tough. They saw they weren't leading, they made a mistake, they threw a bad pass. And it culminated in them not scoring any sevens after that. It was due to the fact that they couldn't take on the revved up machine in full swing that we were."

"That was again a diabolical masterstroke by coach Vícha. Because when it's the Olympics and you're there for the first time, everything is new. There's so much to see and so much to want to see. And Vicha knew that. There were four groups and the group games were not played in the Olympic Hall in Munich, but they were played in different cities around Munich. We played in Ulm, Göppingen and Augsburg, always about a hundred kilometres from Munich. Of course, it's important for the game if you know what the hall looks like and what the pitch looks like. The dimensions are the same, but somewhere there is a hall where it is free behind the lines and the spectators are four metres behind the lines. It's different from what you're used to. And in other places there are halls where the spectators are crammed completely on the lines. Vícha knew this and planned a tour, it was in April. We saw the Olympic Village for two days, the Olympic Stadium, everything was just about finished. We saw the block where we were going to live, we knew which way we were going to go to the athletics stadium, and in front of it was the big Olympic hall, and when the bands finished, everything was played there. We had a look at that as well, and then we went out every day to the tough games with the club team, both to the Ulm hall and to Göppingen and Augsburg. We looked at the halls, we played in them, we saw what they looked like, and we were already ahead of the others, like we were a bit ahead of them. Then when we went to the Olympics, we already knew which halls we were playing in, where we were staying and what the Olympic Village looked like. It wasn't too much for us, we knew what we were getting into and that was very important."

"Obviously, when guys are together for a fortnight and just training, it's over and over again and the submarine syndrome shows up. So, we'd train what we'd train, and sometimes we'd go for a walk individually and then get together for a beer and say things we wouldn't say any other time. We discussed everything there, which was good too. We clarified some things: 'You don't pass me when I go over there.' Over a beer we explained everything and that was it. When the coaches saw that we were going somewhere, they didn't like it either, but when it wasn't overdone... That's why when we went somewhere, they subtly followed us, so we started going to the other side of Nymburk, to Chvalovice. They didn't know it there, it was the village of Chvalovice. We went there two or three times, the locals liked us. We were such a cheerful bunch, so we sat with them and strengthened the collective."

"We couldn't train, everything stopped, we were just in the barracks. We only went for meals. It was even worse that they allowed us to go to Juliska [stadium – trans.] for training one day, the back way, ninety-six steps. There were Russian soldiers with tanks all the way around, they had nowhere to go to the toilet, that's how it looked... There were an awful lot of them, they were hungry, people were talking to them, they understood that they were not welcomed. After a week they were supposedly replaced because they were inoculated that it was not good that they were there. It was an incredible time of frustration, it took us a long time to get over it, a long time."

"It happened, well, an ordinary Czech person. People live here and some people get a better life in Germany. The problems were during the first year when I didn't realize it. Then we were more careful, I came home from Germany after a fortnight, there were two children at home, eight and twelve years old. I thought: I'll buy something for the children. I brought bananas, tangerines, some chocolate. The children went to school and took a banana for their snack, which is perfectly normal now, but there were no bananas then. And one parent–teacher conference of the school was solving the problem of how the Krepindl child could take a banana to school and the others couldn't. That was a huge discussion, so we stopped giving them bananas at school. Or we finished playing in Germany at 9:30 at night and the trip took five hours. I'd get home at two o'clock in the morning and my father-in-law would say: 'Did you have a flat tire?' No, I arrived alright. There was a punctured tyre on the car, I needed to get back on Monday, and on Sunday I was running around to get it fixed instead of being with my family. It happened three times. Or one time I bought, we have a long front garden, so I bought this little bag of Dutch tulips for the women to plant. The tulips came up beautifully, they bloomed. And again in a week my wife says: 'Hey, I'm outside, did you cut the tulips?' Someone came and cut them, everything was shaved."

"For the Olympic silver we were invited to the Hrzánský Palace to the Prime Minister Štrougal. In addition to treats, he gave 30,000 crowns for a gold medal, and 10,000 for a silver medal - either for an individual or for people in a team. And in cash. Packets of a hundred-crowns each, you could put it in your pocket, it was worse when Ludva Daněk took three hundred hundred-crowns, he had a stuffed jacket. We were taken from the Prime Minister to the ROH (Revolutionary Trade Union Movement), to the headquarters, Karel Hoffmann was the chairman." - "It was the Central Council of Trade Unions..." - "Yes. Those who had silver could choose a two-week domestic holiday. Who had gold, Bulgaria. My wife and I went to the Tatra Mountains, to Tatranská Lomnica, so we had a great time." - "What about the fans at home?" - "Jesus, they were cursing us, they were supposedly horny because we got an incredible amount of telegrams cheering us on after Russia. But they didn't put the game against the Russians on TV in our country, they put us only on the final. It was supposed to be played on Sunday, but the Olympics were postponed because of the remembrance ceremony, so it was played on Monday at a quarter to twelve at night. I heard from friends of mine, they said: 'We were waiting to see how you were going to play, the game finished at one and a half with the ceremony, we didn't get any sleep, and you still played so badly."