Αυτά είχα γράψει στο φόρουμ του Ερυθρού Αστέρα, με την ελπίδα να προκύψουν κάποιες πληροφορίες:
It's about the match between Panathinaikos and Red Star Belgrade of 1971.
1971 was the year Chelsea won the cup winners cup and Panathinaikos played at Wembley against Ajax for the champions cup final (Ajax won 2-0).
The semi was between Panathinaikos and Red Star.
The first match in Belgrade was turned by Red Star into a procession and the Serbian team won by 4 goals to 1. Panathinaikos who was managed by Ferenc Pushkas had to replace their goalkeeper at half time, because his hands were shaking.
But in the replay Panathinaikos won by 3-0 and went through thanks to the away goal.
Here is the video of that match, in Jugoslav commentary:
At 0:12 you can see Despoina Papadopoulos watching. Despoina was the wife of dictator Papadopoulos.
This match took place on the 28th of April 1971.
Wild celebrations followed and Panathinaikos started preparing for the final, that was to be held on the 2nd of June in London.
But two months later, after the season had ended, the newspaper FOS of the rival club Olympiakos Piraeus came up with the story that the match was bought !
That was a quite astonishing and daring thing to write at the time, because Panathinaikos's achievement -to become finalists- was thought of as the great success story of the military junta.
FOS dared to write this thing and rather surprisingly they were not arrested for it.
Three years later, after Greece's liberation from the junta, everybody started talking about it and calling the Panathinaikos team cheats.
Panathinaikos under new management claimed the club had nothing to do with the junta and the match was straight and it was a deserved victory for the Pushkas team.
The dispute carries on to this day and really no one knows for sure.
There is a strange story that surfaced later.
Mrs Papadopoulos -who still lives to this day- in a tv interview claims that Patakos the deputy dictator approached her in the director's box during the match and said to her the match was bought !
This created great sensation. The video of the interview is in youtube in Greek language.
But is she telling the truth and why spill the beans against Patakos ?
Patakos -the one with the mini skirts- died last month at the age of 104 and he called this thing drivelous nonsense from the part of Despoina.
The truth is Despoina never liked Patakos.
The woman is so naive she thinks that for some strange reason Patakos was to blame for the downfall of her husband and they don't talk to each other. They had an argument in 1973 and they never talked again since.
The other truth is Patakos was an Olympiakos supporter and also a happy go lucky character. He would n't mind at all walking into the Panathinaikos stadium and say to the various Panathinaikos individuals "you rascals have bought this match" !
So what to make out of it ?
The present generation of Olympiakos supporters think Despoina's words are a gospel and finally the truth came out.
Now what is of interest is the Red Star side of things.
Red Star in 1971 eliminated Inter Milan in the stage of eight and they too were going to be in a champions cup final for the first time in their history.
So could they sell or even show any amount of indifference against Panathinaikos ?
But again the Wembley final was a foregone conclusion whoever played in it. Ajax was a space age team and all the others put together could n't stand a chance (n.b. it took three years for Bayern Munich to emerge as a worthy rival).
So Red Star just might, on these grounds.
My search of Jugoslav sources reveals nothing so that's why I decided to write the story here.
There is an article somewhere of a Red Star player of the 1971 team who says "we were unlucky and also I suspect they put something in our food ; I was feeling numb and dazed for days". But the doctoring of the food is another kettle of fish altogether.
There is no other mention coming out of Serbia.
So do we have some old Serbian fans who remember something ?
I believe a local fan never mistakes such situations.
Was it true or not ?
p.s. Despoina Papadopoulos "confession" below:
