Ján Čapkovič

* 1948

  • "And in fact, when we were already on those trips with teams or national teams, there were definitely secrets. Do you remember any people who somehow found themselves there, who you didn't know in that staff or who watched maybe giving some news? Yes, they certainly were… we found out they were. I will not name them, maybe some still live… so that. And can I …also be within the team? Not. So they were out. No, they were strangers, though - when someone came…like strangers, it was clear. Or when they collected our passports. Well… that… they didn't take them from us so that we wouldn't run away by chance… so we wouldn't lose them :) so! So they told us not to lose our passports, so they took them away from us. So it was such a time, there is nothing you can do. He came to Očko… Janda Očko… and he was there, well .... But for example, Jožko Filo has… his sister missed him. So she traveled, I won't say she left, she traveled to Switzerland. Ivan Hrdlička's brother went to Australia, so we had problems. We were friends too, they all knew that. Then, for example, were you interrogated after such events? Or if they ever summoned someone from the team… We… before we went abroad. Of course, everything… They stripped us naked, they looked at everything to see if there was anything to happen when Hrdlička's brother was an engineer, or if I didn't bring him some papers or something. But, that's how we got used to it, well. That didn't do us any good. But they didn't even want to let us go then! To Australia… because of his brother.., I guess he went to Australia, or I don't know where. And that is Filova's sister… almost Slovan could not fly away. Do you know what year it was? Seventy? Seventy… I mean in the seventies. So there was a time that we knew they were watching us. It's clear when someone goes that we didn't know him. So we knew… what else… Boys collect passports, put passports here so you don't lose them. ”

  • “And I would still ask, when we have the year 68 here, then to the Prague Spring… that how you perceived it, and that whether, for example, in the sport it manifested itself somehow… that whether you reflected it in any way that the process, the democratization… For example, in Slovakia there was also a question of the federalization that arose… whether, for example, it was somehow reflected in your neighborhood, in your surroundings. Neither nor, somehow not very. Yes it was such that… we cursed, that's for sure! The occupiers…. in '69 we were in Argentina and there were Hungarians, Entéka Budapest, at that tournament, so then it was the fascist occupiers on the pitch. We didn't like them. But in the process of that, in the team… more openly did not criticize anything. Not. In the management… or did not happen? No, we didn't have that. We did sports and school. It wasn't even like that when we trained and started falling bullets, bullets, cartridges, then… on the field, then we greased nicely from the field down. Was that the twenty-first of August? Yes, it was… I don't know if it was the first or the second of August… the twenty-second of August, I may not know even later. And when there were riots in Bratislava, people went there. I am… I am, but I also went… I still lived in Petržalka. It happened to me that they didn't let me cross the bridge home with the submachine guns, I couldn't go home across the bridge to Petržalka. We had it that way. What can be done when we are occupied. And maybe you remember the night they came, from the twenty-first to the twenty-first of August. I remember that very well. For our father, however, it was like this on the fourth morning. He says, "Boys, get up, war!" On Orošvárská, Rusovská cesta… full of tanks stands. And father, you were there? "No, they reported it." So it was like that, because Petržalka…they came from there.”

  • "I would just ask about that Red Star. So when have you started to play? At the age of 56, we started training. Then we were eight years old - they were younger students. But then it was not so divided as now that there were preparers and all these younger students, C, D and so on. So there were only three teams, older students, younger students and a preparation team. So we played B, younger students… or A, younger students. And maybe try us, if you could tell that like those younger students, or that it was a league, it was all-Slovak, wasn't it? No, they were only Bratislava, because the students were only Bratislava competitions. Biskupice, Vrakuňa and such teams played there, but… So, there was… the Red Star was said to be a hatchery, a sports hatchery for football players. However, I can say that the coaches were excellent there in our club, so in Červenka. Hložek took us as young boys. So still playing… was our playing coach. He still played the first league in the red star… he still coached. Well, I can't say, I won't name them, because there were a lot of those coaches, but in some way, each coach lifted us up… football. Well, I have to mention one, Jožko Hodulík, he trained teenage boys and he had a credo: "You will die or you will die." We went to train - it was around the Danube. We ran miles… that was something incredible. And precisely because it was said, "You will go to men, you will have some relief."In Slovan - I came to Slovan - what I was supposed to do with them, you can say with a brother, we were never the last. We ran in the lead! Jožko Kudulík, after all, the terror he was developing against us as a coach, gave us a lot. We came and played the league then. So fit you… It was great. And he was on a bicycle behind us along the Petržalka dam. And the worst part was that these are such golden memories. "Boys, you can go to the Danube to get a little wet, but not undress, because we're moving on." And we in those… in those heavy rubber boots. It was so rubbery - we ran into the Danube, the water drank after that and we had more pounds. He was looking forward to it… but it gave us something. "

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    Bratislava, 25.05.2022

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„This goal against Barcelona, ​​few can boast about it.“

Current photograph of the former football player and representative of Czechoslovakia, Ján Čapkovič, from the recording in 2022. (1)
Current photograph of the former football player and representative of Czechoslovakia, Ján Čapkovič, from the recording in 2022. (1)
zdroj: Martin Rodák

Ján Čapkovič, a former Slovak footballer and Czech-Slovak national team member, was born on January 11, 1948 in Bratislava, in one of Petržalka‘s family houses. In addition to coming from twins, he has a brother who is three years older. Father Ľudovít Čapkovič, a native of Trnava, was born in 1917 and mostly worked as a clerk in his life. Later, he worked for almost 40 years as the chief treasurer of the Slovak State Savings Bank. Mother Mária was a year older than her husband and worked as a payroll accountant. Ján‘s parents lived in Petržalka for many years and did not leave it even after the outbreak of World War II. In 1954, Ján began attending primary school in Bratislava, where, like others, he took part in all kinds of school activities, such as visiting theaters and attending mathematics olympiads. Interest in football, not only as entertainment, but also much more important, began in 1956, after being accepted into the Red Star Bratislava club. In 1963 he entered the Secondary Industrial School of Electrical Engineering on Zochova Street in Bratislava, and at that time he was already part of the Youth League. In April 1967, at the end of high school, a transfer to Slovan took place. Jano and his brother joined the team as young boys and worked there for ten years. Ján played 286 league matches, while he was missing in only six. He was never injured and as an attacker and one of the fastest Slovan players, he always played the left wing. After high school, he joined the Department of Physical Education at Comenius University. As it was difficult to combine training in Slovan with sports at school, he left school after a few months. The following school year he entered the Faculty of Economics, which he successfully completed in 1979. Perhaps the greatest club success of Slovan, his team won in 1969 in Basel, where they defeated the FC Barcelona Cup Winners‘ Cup in the final. Ján gave them his miraculous right foot, the final, third goal. Unforgettable were also the Republic Championships in 1970, when Slovan disrupted the hegemony of Trnava and won the title for the first time. Ján thus won three championship titles and three cup trophies. In addition, he also became the best scorer and header of the season. Although Jano had many opportunities to emigrate, he never considered it. He had several offers, but since he almost got married and had two children, he was afraid that his departure would cause problems for the family. A specific offer came, for example, from Espanyol Barcelona, ​​but declined. After returning from the war, he remained working at the Red Star Club as a clerk and at the same time as an active player for another six years. He thus became the first acting clerk until 1986. In the Red Star itself, he served for thirty years. He worked with talented youth until 2010. Due to his work in the field of sports, he accepted a job at the Ministry of the Interior and in 1987, so he had to join the Communist Party, although he did not want to. At present, Ján is dedicated exclusively to his family and to his four grandchildren, whom he loves very much.