Ján Medviď

* 1946

  • "Well, and then I went to Prešov for high school... for the construction industry. That was already connected, because my brother was already playing... he played in the league at that time, and now they, well, I'll say it this way, in that village with childhood and so on... it was the most beautiful, and I probably got the basics there too... of course, everyone probably got something individually. So for me the most important thing was the village food, one with the other, the air and then movement. Like this, the chases were there... it was not like now, that on the playgrounds they have all these, these devices... aids and so on. Well, we were chasing, running, jumping over there... and this is what I want to say, so healthy so... physical some so, so... I just... I was gifted with that. So this is how I feel... Then I was lucky in Prešov that I got involved, that I started playing football and that's how my career began, well. Yes, I will gradually move on to that career, but I would also like to ask about entry into secondary school... was that... the personnel reviews were also done, because of my father... That's it... that, that, that... it wasn't like this anymore. Not anymore, because they already knew through that brother that it was about me, who it was about... my brother probably told them something, so they took it as if they were taking me. This is different. With these so-called football players, brothers, younger, older... It is always assumed that when the older brother already has a career, they always look at him as if the younger one probably has some talent too. Or let's say that some kind of succession, well. Well, I was probably so gifted that they liked me, yes... yes, they took me there for a walk. And actually before, when you at least played a little bit of football, if there was time... try to describe it to us, because those fields were certainly not like the village ones... like today. What did they look like then? Simple. They were on the edge of the village… they lived near there, or still live now, maladaptive, so you can imagine. There was no building, no changing rooms... nothing... there were only wooden pegs, the fenced playground. Sometimes the grass grew more, sometimes less... so it sometimes looked like that. But I didn't play a single match for anyone in particular... this was interesting. The first match with nets and a stand that we played, in Svidník, where the school was selected... the selected team from the school, from the collecting school... there I was on the field for the first time with the referee. So I grew up... I call it that in the cow academy... it was the cow academy that hadn't applied yet, but now could still ask for something from the funds to make up for it."

  • "And... I would also ask about such a very early childhood. In addition to the fact that you were probably already in preschool age, you had to help with the household... but, as children, you spent your time in... Time. In that time. At that time... at that time... well, I'm not ashamed! Sometimes I'm surprised that a person survived. Well, it was like that... it was our childhood, it was nice. When I think about it, when you didn't have a radio, when you didn't know anything, we didn't even know how the world works and so on... even in that high school when I started, it wasn't much God knows. So this life then brought… I got that perspective through travel and so on. And then by studying. Well, there you go... but these... well, good job. So I answered that, well, I didn't have time, although I wanted to go to the field with the boys to dig in with them, but I couldn't. I came from school, from the neighboring village... dropped my bag... go with the cows to the field, let's eat some food... go with the cows to the field, come back... sweep, clean the stables, make bedding and so on... when water needs to be brought for the cows and so on . Whatever you like, this must be done, chop the straw, as they say... so... well, chop the grass, mow with a lawnmower, for the cows to have, yes... In autumn or winter and so on... or water when they had to be given, well... so on they were robots. And then when it came... there was still time to eat, and then when it came... it came... homework and candlelight. So... even the housework. That way according to age, but I couldn't, I was a little boy... but I also sometimes went to the field with my mother, which I mentioned, or when the potatoes were being planted. But the mother did not allow such common household chores there, everything had to be done, and only then. Well, but it was already dark, there were no longer conditions for that... And you actually started going to elementary school in the fifty-second year, or do you actually remember that? In fifty-seconds... I mean, I was a freshman. That was one class... that was me in the village in Stročín and one other neighbor, that was our entire year one to five, and then we went to that collective school, that Slovak school in Mestisk, walking there and back, there and back. And actually the first grade, was it a classic folk school? The folk school, where it was divided, one third year, I think... it was preserved that way."

  • "And... sorry. And do you know exactly what the verdict was? How did they justify it, what was written there, why was he in that prison. It was, it was written. Come on, that... Jesus Maria... Well, wait, he got a terrible... cut-throat paragraph... come on... wait, I'll remember... against, against the republic what is it. That's the hardest part... preparing the layout! Sorry I didn't know... plotting! What is the worst that can be... that's what they gave him. He was also threatened, well. Because he allegedly did not fulfill... that he disrupted the economic plan because of one day he stood with the thresher. After that he is said to be a mechanic and technician... that he didn't know how to repair a part, and that he laughed... because those young soldiers helped then, that was the way it was... when they were struggling, or wanted to hold on... so that then a part he sabotaged that he didn't want to repair and so on... because he was a technician. Because of that... nothing else. And actually... I would also ask, did he ever mention how he survived, whether the interrogators tortured him, or whether he also experienced such practices. Well, well, well... when this first becomes public like this... I got the books and papers... this is what I'm going to tell you now. When he came out of that prison, when I was alone with my mother... all this I saw, after my father was taken away... the consequences, how my mother suffered and all of us, and what about my father. And what's worse, the father has gone mad from the prison! He was mentally finished. He was even still there... because the doctors and my mother were still threatening... We went to see him twice in psychiatry. But when they let him go home, it was the hardest for me, but probably also for my mother... that period! Then… then he got over it, in about two years. He got it. Well, he was processed so much that I remember... I'll finish this and then I'll go back to what you asked about how he was experiencing it. So it was processed that the mother sometimes took the hoe, which I saw with my own eyes... or when she goes to the yard, she took the... as they say, she took the watering can... she had a kettle with her, that she goes with the water... so the father was so processed that he normally grabbed her by the coats...coats we call those women's skirts that were so wide. He grabbed her by the coat and said: "No, don't go anywhere, stay here, don't go to work!" So he was worried... this was the fear. And this question. So it was unpleasant... from all that I saw, the consequences for my mother. But what he went through, what we saw in him... He couldn't sleep. He used to come to us from the front room... he was walking and he was banging his head against the wall, against the doorframe. In the prison where he was allegedly beaten, he was beaten! What did they see, so they say... that there were aprons and electric shocks to the head! "

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    Bratislava, 21.06.2023

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„We played in front of a packed stage... so that was the biggest motivation... and that gives you something more than money!“

Ján Medviď during recording in 2023
Ján Medviď during recording in 2023
zdroj: Photo by Dominik Janovský

Ján Medviď, a former Czechoslovak football player and representative, was born on August 18, 1946 in eastern Slovakia, in the picturesque village of Stročín. He comes from three siblings, the older ones being sister Jarmila and brother Michal. The roots of his family, specifically on his father Gregor‘s side, go back to Polish territory, while his grandfather Samuel transported his entire family on trailers in 1908 from a very, at that time, neglected piece of Polish land, from Kwiatoń, to the already mentioned village of Stročín. Mother Helena, unmarried Kizáková, was a native and came from four sisters. Ján‘s father Gregor inherited a considerable property from his grandfather, specifically eight and a half hectares of land and part of the forest. At the beginning of the 1950s, it could mean only one thing, and that was to be called a kulag. Which led to persecution, arrests and even imprisonment. As a small boy, Ján had to help a lot at home, be it around the household or the farmstead. However, he was definitely not unhappy, as he could also devote himself to his favorite sport, football. However, it cannot be a question of a modern field or changing rooms. He started kicking with his peers on a field marked with pegs, and as he says, he grew up in the so-called „cow academy“. He started attending elementary school in 1952 and after eight years he continued at the Middle School of Construction in Prešov. There he started his active football career, in Tatran Prešov. As it became increasingly difficult to breathe in Prešov, the atmosphere froze and jealousy among teammates also appeared, Ján decided in May 1965 to leave for Bratislava. He became a part of Slovan, and also of the Czechoslovak league. In May 1968, Ján started working in Dukla, Banská Bystrica, where he spent his mandatory military service, and where he was also caught up in the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the troops of the Warsaw Pact. After his return, in 1970 he started playing for Slovan again, until 1979. He spent his best football years there and traveled the world with 15 stops. Ján has worked in the national team since 1972. Thanks to this, he got to countries such as Marakana and Jakarta. After the mandatory military service, Ján also started studying. He studied remotely at the Faculty of Law, and later decided to study at the FTVŠ, coaching. After 1979, he accepted the position of playing coach in the Austrian team in Sandorf. In 1986, he decided to leave Czechoslovakia and became a football coach in Kuwait for seven long years. Because of the Iraqi invasion, he did not return to Kuwait, and with a one-year break, until 2010, he worked alternately in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Qatar. Currently, Ján is blessed with four grandchildren and is enjoying life in retirement.