Scottish Football’s Coaching Pioneers 2: John Dick

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It always seems strange that these days not only are there so few Scottish players abroad, there are also so few Scottish coaches. Especially when things weren’t always that way. Far from it.

Also, you may want to check out my article for the Dunfermline Press which asks why more Scottish coaches today don’t make the move abroad: Article

Following on from last week’s article on Slavia Prague’s first coach, John ‘Jake’ Madden, this time we switch our attentions across the city to Sparta Prague and the most famous manager in their history. His name? John (Johny) Dick. His place of birth? Eaglesham in Renfrewshire.

Born in 1876, Dick had played for Airdrieonians prior to joining the then still ‘Woolwich’ Arsenal in 1898. If Scottish players have had their fitness levels questioned, then that’s been a more recent development. Dick was known for his fitness levels and his cross-country running. By 1903 he was one of only four Arsenal players to have reached 100 appearances for the club. ((http://www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk/archives/1739))

He stayed with Arsenal until 1912, though it’s suggested by Arsenal fan Andy Kelly that his playing career had ended in 1910 and he’d taken over the role of the club’s reserve team manager for his final two seasons. He also says that Dick was a stonemason by trade, but ran a tobacco & confectionery business in Plumstead towards the end of his period with the Gunners. ((http://www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk/archives/1739))

In 1912, according to Richard McBrearty, curator of the Scottish Football Museum Dick moved to Prague to become coach of Deutscher FC. Andy Kelly mentions that Arsenal had played Deutscher FC in May 1912 in Prague when on a foreign tour and that they had also played in Prague a few years earlier, in 1907, when they’d played Madden’s Slavia Prague. ((http://www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk/archives/1739)) Slavia’s archives confirm the latter, with Arsenal winning 4-7 and 2-4 in their two matches against the Bohemian side. ((http://www.slavia.webzdarma.cz/1907.html)))

These matches make it likely that Dick would at least have seen the city and the standard of its football before making the move. Deutscher FC Prag (note the German spelling) takes us back to something that was mentioned in the Madden article – the ethnic division of football across the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a club founded by German Jewish students at university in Prague ((http://gottfriedfuchs.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/deutsche-meisterschaft-19021903.html)), up until 1904 DFC Prag had played under the auspices of the German FA (DFB). In 1904, the DFB joined FIFA, who refused to have associations classified ethnically rather than along borders…so DFC Prag could no longer play in a league organised by the DFB. As such, they played across Austria, Hungary and what would become Czechoslovakia. ((https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DFC_Prag))

Unfortunately, we have very little information about Dick himself after he left Arsenal, so I’m afraid that he’ll have to live on through his achievements rather than through his direct words or actions.

In what would have been Dick’s first season, DFC Prag won the impressive sounding Bohemian Championship. Less impressively, this only involved them playing 4 matches. Due to the previously mentioned confusions of nationality and ethnicity, this tournament was conducted under the auspices of the Austrian Football Association, so only involved Dick’s new side playing against Austrian-affiliated clubs in Bohemia – hence Teplitzer FK 03 and Karlsbader FC. You can only beat what’s in front of you though and the Scot’s side did win all four matches, scoring a total of 14 and conceding 5. ((http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Österreichische_Fußballmeisterschaft_1912/13))

Where his coaching career really took off though was with his move to Sparta Prague in 1919. Between 1919 and 1923, his Sparta side won 5 consecutive league championships and picked up the nickname Železná Sparta (Iron Sparta).

Incidentally, as this article’s being written by a comedian, I hope you’ll let me slip in the aside that just before, during and on a few occasions after WWI, Sparta fielded Vlasta Burian in goals. ((http://www.pozitivni-noviny.cz/cz/clanek-2007020017)) The name probably won’t be familiar to most Scottish readers, but he’s known as ‘The King of Czech comedians’, gaining renown for his comic acting onstage in theatres and in over 40 movies. ((http://www.csfd.cz/tvurce/1445-vlasta-burian/))

Dick might have felt at home taking over at Sparta, given that their club legend dictates that their colours were taken from Arsenal. Apparently in 1906 the club’s President, Dr. Petřík had visited England, seen Arsenal playing in deep red shirts and decided to take a set home to Prague for Sparta to play in. ((http://www.acsparta.estranky.cz/clanky/vznik.html)) (This was before Arsenal had adopted their current shade of red and white sleeves – more like the ‘redcurrant’ shirts they wore in their Highbury commemorative shirts).

The nickname ‘Iron Sparta’ was well deserved. On the way to lifting those 5 consecutive titles between 1919 and 1923, Dick’s side played 59 competitive matches and only lost one. This was a 1-2 defeat to Union Zizkov in 1919. ((http://gottfriedfuchs.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/zelezna-sparta.html))

Again, it’s worth clarifying the league situation in the country at the time. Those 5 league title wins between 1919 and 1923 refer to the Středočeská župa (Central Czech county league). While that may not sound so impressive, it was the largest Czech football league of the time. Also, in 1919 and 1922, the winners of all the regional leagues played off to decide the overall champions of Czechoslovakia. In the 1919 tournament, this involved Sparta playing in a round robin tournament with SK Kladno, Olympia Plzen and SK Hradec Kralove. They won all three matches, scoring 17 goals without reply. ((http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistrovstv%C3%AD_Českého_svazu_fotbalového_1919))

In 1922, 8 clubs were involved (including an early incarnation of Slovak side Slovan Bratislava) and played in a knockout format. Sparta met Hradec Kralove in the final…and hammered them 7-0. ((http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistrovstv%C3%AD_Českého_svazu_fotbalového_1922))

So, Sparta may have been indisputably the best side not only in the Central Czech region from 1919-23, but also in the whole of Czechslovakia…and yet you’re still reading this and pondering how much significance that held in a wider European context, aren’t you?

Well, you remember how in the last article I mentioned Madden coaching the Czech men’s football side all the way to the Olympic Final in 1920? Ten of the side that played in that final (or at least for almost half of it before they walked off…) came from Sparta Prague. ((http://gottfriedfuchs.blogspot.com/2012/09/zelezna-sparta.html)) This at a point where Olympic football was arguably the world’s premier tournament for international sides.

Though Britain was still regarded not only as the home of football, but as the home of the game’s top sides, there was a view that the best teams of the time that continental Europe had to offer were FC Nuremberg, Barcelona…and Sparta. ((http://rowdieshermanicky.717.cz/menu/historie-sparty/sparta-vladne-evrope-i-1918-1922)) In 1921, Nuremberg, of the view that they were Europe’s finest but that Sparta were their closest rivals for the title, challenged them to a match. Journalists tagged it as an unofficial ‘Battle to be European Champion’. ((http://rowdieshermanicky.717.cz/menu/historie-sparty/sparta-vladne-evrope-i-1918-1922)) This was a Nuremberg side that would win five league titles themselves between 1920 and 1927. ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_football_champions#Early_German_football_championships_.281903.E2.80.9332.29)) (In fact, in 1922 they only lost out on the title in somewhat bizarre circumstances that you can read about here

Sparta drew 0-0 in Nuremberg, but won the return tie 5-2 at home. ((http://rowdieshermanicky.717.cz/menu/historie-sparty/sparta-vladne-evrope-i-1918-1922)) At this point, Barcelona were the only team left standing in the way of Sparta being recognised as the continent’s best club side. Sparta faced the Catalans without two of their forward line. Centre-Forward Vaclav Pilat was ill, while inside-left Josef Šroubek (who as well as making it into the Czechoslovakia football team, also played 40 times for Czechoslovakia at ice hockey, winning bronze with the team at the 1920 Olympic games. ((http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Šroubek)) The club’s centre-half Karel ‘Kada’ Pesek represented Czechoslovakia at both ice hockey and football too. ((http://www.economist.com/node/457158))) had to stay behind in Prague due to work commitments. ((http://rowdieshermanicky.717.cz/menu/historie-sparty/sparta-vladne-evrope-i-1918-1922)) Playing on the 25th of December 1921 in Barcelona, in a game officiated by 3 Catalans , Sparta triumphed 3-2.

In 1923, for reasons that seem lost to the mists of time, Dick departed his Iron Sparta team to take over as coach of Belgian side Beerschot. There is some mention of Sparta having defeated Beerschot 4-2 in 1922 when they’d become Belgian champions. ((http://spartaac.webnode.cz/spartansky-dejepis-iv-/)) The easiest assumption to make would be that the Beerschot directors wanted Dick to bring their side up to the high standard he’d reached at Sparta and simply offered him more money.

Unfortunately, Beerschot met their demise in the modern era when they were merged with another local side to form Germinal Beerschot. Last season, that successor club was declared bankrupt and was dissolved. Problems like these making tracing more information on Dick through club records even more difficult.

What we do know though is that from 1923 to 1928, Beerschot won 4 Belgian league titles and were runners-up in the other season. It seems that Dick had retained his Iron touch. Managers returning to an old club often cite ‘unfinished business’ though and it seems that Dick must have had some of this with Sparta as, circa 1928, he returned to the club.

I say circa 1928 as, once again, the records are sketchy. Many sources for Sparta’s 1927 Mitropa Cup Final victory over Rapid Vienna – including the normally excellent http://www.iffhs.de/ list Dick as being the team’s trainer. In fact, it seems likely that he was still with Beerschot for at least another season and that former Sparta player Vaclav Spindler was still in charge of the side. ((http://gottfriedfuchs.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/la-coupe-de-leurope-centrale-1927.html)) This view is backed up by Sparta’s own website, which lists Spindler as trainer for this period. ((http://www.sparta.cz/cs/klub/historie/treneri.shtml))

Dick’s time with Beerschot brought an unexpected benefit for Sparta though as, in 1930, the club made a signing from Beerschot who became Belgium’s first officially professional footballer as a result, Raymond Braine. ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Braine)) Interestingly though, Braine had first attempted to pursue a professional career in England – he had a trial with the then Clapton Orient but the club were unable to secure a work permit for him. ((http://www.wsc.co.uk/the-archive/31-Players/3965-through-the-net)) From that disappointment, it was on to be reunited with his old coach and become a Sparta Prague legend.

Braine was introduced to his teammates three days before his first match for the club, in the Mitropa Cup against First Vienna. Braine scored the winning goal and left the pitch on the shoulders of the Sparta fans who had invaded the pitch in delight. ((http://www.spartaforever.cz/ukaz_clanek.php?clanek=489)) In six years with the club, Braine would score 120 goals in just 102 league matches. ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Braine)) He was so successful that before the 1934 World Cup (the final of which the Czechoslovakian team composed entirely of Sparta & Slavia players would lose 2-1 to Italy after extra time) the Czechoslovakian FA tried to convince him to switch his nationality from Belgian to play for them. After some thought, he politely declined. ((http://www.spartaforever.cz/ukaz_clanek.php?clanek=489))

By the time of Dick’s return to Sparta the balance of power in the city and the country had switched though. Slavia Prague were the dominant side and Dick had to settle for only one more league title and three runner-up spots.

He also managed to just miss out on guiding the club to the Mitropa Cup. The tournament had only begun in 1927, the year of Sparta’s first victory in it, while he was still with Beerschot. In 1930, he guided the side back to the final, but they lost 4-3 on aggregate over two legs. A disappointing 0-2 home defeat in the first leg couldn’t be overturned, despite a battling 2-3 victory in Vienna. The semi-finals had even seen an 8-3 aggregate victory over Inter Milan (then still AS Ambrosiana) which including a 6-1 humbling of the Italian side. ((http://www.iffhs.de/?f05fd0f0838cac2b98e0a3fcb45fe4a4129d815a85fdcdc3bfcdc0aec7cdeeda8a384f04788ec0384612))

Sparta wouldn’t lift the Mitropa cup again until 1935, two years after the end of Dick’s second and final spell with the club. So what became of him after he left? We don’t know. Even the timing and place of his death are a mystery. The only information I’ve been able to find comes from posters on an Arsenal forum about him. One points to the book Who’s Who of Arsenal by Tony Matthews as mentioning that Dick died in 1948 in Plumstead. Another poster claims a distant family relationship and says that he died in Surrey in 1961. ((http://www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk/archives/1739))

John Dick, a man of huge achievements and huge mystery.

To try to give some sense of Sparta’s strength relative to the British clubs of the time, here are their (known) results against British clubs from Dick’s time in charge ((http://www.rsssf.com/tablesb/brit-ier-tours-prewwii.html))

21-05-1922 AC Sparta Praha 2-1 Celtic (Photos at TheCelticWiki.com)

?-6-1922 AC Sparta Praha 6-2 Aberdeen

?-?-1923 AC Sparta Praha 1-1 West Ham United

19-5-1928 AC Sparta/SK Slavia 2-0 Blackburn Rovers

?-?-1929 AC Sparta Praha 3-2 Huddersfield Town

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About the Author

Twice runner-up in Scottish Comedian of the Year finals, Teddy was named ‘Best Up and Coming Comedian’ at the Scottish Variety Awards in 2010. He’s written for two BBC Radio 5 ‘Unsporting Reviews of the Year’, and has also worked as both writer and script editor on the BBC1 Scotland football shows ‘Offside’ & ‘Only An Excuse?’. He’s been a Rangers season-ticket holder for the past 17 years, but he’s all about the football not “all that other sh*te”. Also has a fondness for Dynamo Kyiv that can be traced back to an unhealthy obsession with Alexei Mikhailitchenko (or Oleksiy Mykhalychenko if you prefer to transliterate from the Ukrainian rather than the Russian. That’s the unhealthy obsession we’re talking about.)

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