Mass fights at the end of football matches are not uncommon. Especially when the team loses by one goal and tries with all its might to even the score. There are disputes, deliberate pokes and violations, sometimes it comes to massacre.

One of these matches took place in September 1995, the Spartak-Alania club hosted the capital’s Spartak. At the meeting in Vladikavkaz, referee Nikolai Levnikov worked, who was almost beaten by the players in the end.

And one of the main characters of that day was the well-known Sergey Yuran.

Tournament intrigue drove the teams crazy

In case of victory in this match, Spartak-Alania would have knocked out Moscow Spartak from the contenders for the title and approached Lokomotiv at a distance of one point. In the first half, both teams showed great football, double-edged, with good attacks. Nothing foreshadowed a hand-to-hand battle, and only two yellow cards were shown in half of the game.

But in the second half went real heat. It all started with a penalty against Spartak. The anger of goalkeeper Stanislav Cherchesov and defender Yuri Nikiforov fell upon Levnikov, their partners Viktor Onopko and Vasily Kulkov hardly pulled the wounded players away from the referee.

Mirjalol Kasymov confidently shot from the spot, and after the ball was played from the center of the field, a new brawl ensued – Nikiforov again became a defendant. Yuri hand-to-hand fought with Anatoly Kanishchev, both left the field.

But the fun didn’t end there. Already with the score 1:1 (“Spartak” bounced back from the penalty spot), Yuran went into a tough joint with Zaur Khapov, his namesake Timofeev attacked Sergei. Levnikov wrote them out on the second warning and sent them off the field, and then almost received cuffs from the hosts’ player Omari Tetradze – he went with his fists to the refereeing team.

If we take the impact of this game for the entire season, then Spartak-Alania benefited more from its outcome. With this draw, they knocked Muscovites out of the race for the championship, and they themselves took the title, then overtaking Lokomotiv by as much as six points. The Vladikavkaz team was coached by Valery Gazzaev, and Spartak was then led by Oleg Romantsev. The “Red-Whites” took only the third line in the table.

“Alania” won silver the next season, losing to Spartak in the dramatic ending of the championship, but Vladikavkaz did not manage to gain a foothold among the giants of Russian football.