Friday marks exactly one hundred years since the birth of the famous Dynamo Moscow football player Vladimir Savdunin.
Vladimir Grigorievich was born on May 10, 1924, in Moscow to a family of a driver and a housewife. During his school years, he was fond of drawing and football, which he started playing thanks to his uncle who played for the Start team of the drivers’ trade union. At the age of 15, Savdunin joined the youth team Start, where he played until 1941.
After the outbreak of World War II, the Savdunins evacuated to Samara, returning to the capital in 1942. Vladimir Grigorievich dreamed of becoming a pilot and entered an aircraft factory, where he assembled engines for attack aircraft, and in his rare leisure hours he never parted with the ball.
When he finally turned 18, Savdunin volunteered for the front, where he performed many glorious feats as a scout of the 50th tank brigade. Vladimir Grigorievich recalled that during his service, his good reaction, acquired through sports activities, often saved him.
Savdunin finished the war in Romania, having earned the Order of the Great Patriotic War, 1st and 2nd classes, and two Orders of the Red Star. After his third wound in May 1944, he was sent to Moscow for treatment and was not allowed back to the front. He returned to football thanks to Konstantin Beskov, whom he had known before the war.
Mikhail Yakushin liked how Savdunin handled the ball, especially his physical condition. At the end of May 1945, Vladimir Grigorievich made his debut in the Dynamo first team, won gold medals with it at the USSR championship, and went on a famous tour of Great Britain as the youngest player on the team.
Savdunin was one of the most versatile players of that time and could act equally useful almost in any position on the field. He boldly engaged in the fight for the ball; in single combats, he was tenacious and unyielding. Excellent rapport with partners and non-standard dribbling made him a formidable weapon when he acted as a striker.
He had a cannon shot with both legs and is still in the top 10 of the best scorers of Dynamo of all time with 70 goals. At the junction of 1949-1950, Savdunin set up a record series of goals, scoring nine times in five league matches. It was broken only 36 years later by Alexander Borodyuk, who scored 12 goals in five games.
In total, over 12 years of his career, Savdunin played 216 matches, became a four-time champion of the USSR as part of Dynamo, won the country’s Cup and became an Honored Master of Sports of the USSR. After finishing his football career, he played for Dynamo in bandy for two more years, where he also achieved great success — he became the champion of the USSR twice, and in 1954 he was the top scorer of the championship.
After finishing with sports, Savdunin went to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomatic courier. For almost three decades of service, he was repeatedly awarded state awards for his courage and bravery. Vladimir Grigorievich continued to interact with sports even after retirement, providing targeted assistance to veterans. He died in October 2008 at the age of 84 and was buried in Moscow at the Kuzminskoye cemetery.