The origins of yesterday’s club badge found us in the Czech Republic & today we head east over the border into Slovakia, & the recently-acquired exhibit from the collection representing Spartak Trnava, to whom the attraction clearly began with the name - the fascination with the absence of vowels where one might be expected somewhere in the first half of ‘Trnava’ &, of course, the prefixing ‘Spartak’, which was (& remains) considerably more exotic than the domestic glut of prosaic Towns, Cities & Uniteds, for all that it is a fairly common occurrence amongst East European club names.
The geographical location in the then-Czechoslovakia (one of the very best country names, & one for which we experience pangs of ‘Ostalgie’) would have only added to the appeal to an impressionable youth, as I was at the time of discovery, which would have been early on in my Euro football-following days but just as Trnava had, alas, passed the peak of their run of domestic success (five times Czechoslovakian champions between 1968 – 1973, only missing out in 1970) & the height of their European profile (European Cup semi-finalists in 1969 & twice quarter-finals in 1973 & ’74), although the club have been regular participants in the UEFA Cup & subsequent Europa League over the course of this millennium to date, & the name still resonates, as the red & black striped shirts attract aesthetically.
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