Kazimierz Deyna

[Kompany is King]

It was a joy to watch Deyna play. I feel privileged to have seen him play for City.

 

[robinhood CITY]

Legend and gentleman.

I can't help but notice the defending from around that time, no challenges- just shepherd the player on to his weaker side.

That comment reminds me of Kazi's winner at Leeds, from memory he got the ball just outside the corner of the box on the City left, the Leeds defender showed him inside so Kazi shifts the ball onto his right foot and with barely any backlift whacks it inside the near post, quality finish from a hugely talented player.

Went to that game if I remember correctly Steve Daley had his best game for City

 

[Dirty Harry]

Read the whole of this thread through, though most of the posts are years old. The comment by the then Stoke manager Alan Durban, about Deyna being on a different wavelength from his team mates, is spot on. I remember my old man used to say the same about him at the time, comparing the situation in that regard to the young Denis Law's first spell at Maine Road.

I always got the impression that he found it hard to adjust to the pace of the English game when playing in midfield, and his best displays for City were when he was employed as a striker. Even though he ultimately played only 30-odd league games for the club, he provided some good memories and I liked him a lot. His high-water mark with us came in the week when he scored the only goal in successive 1-0 wins at Maine Road in October 1979, against Boro on the Wednesday night and then Forest, reigning European Cup holders, on the Saturday.

I think Big Mal referred to the Forest game as our 'O' levels, and the up and coming Liverpool game as our 'A' levels, we failed our 'A' levels spectacularly, as we often did against the red dippers at Maine Road, not even Deyna could save us.

 

[spacecadet]

How ironic that Deyna has gone to the top of Bluemoon, in the last half hour I have just printed some images to complete a full wall of City favourites and great moments on my study wall. Sure it's Doyley appealing for an offside that the linesman agrees with as the great Deyna wheels away. 79-80?

 

[kismet]

Great picture and great memories. He was one of my all time favourite City players and yet he only played around 40 games. Similar to Gerry Gow a crowd favourite but only a season or so with us. Privileged to have seen both play in the sky blue shirt.

Deyna was so skilful with great vision, he played in a struggling team , goodness knows what would have happened if you put him into today's team !!!

 

[Bill]

Watching merlin weave his magic got me thinking
about Kazimierz,the closest city player to David i have seen
in a blue shirt

from 5.30 testamonial for Legia Warsaw against City

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCg1oeKuIwQ&feature=related[/youtube]


By the time 'Kazzy' Deyna arrived in Manchester in November 1978 he was already a hugely experienced player. He'd previously played for Poland in both the 1972 Olympic Games and the 1974 World Cup (not to mention being the holder of 105 caps and the scorer of 45 international goals), had won Poland's Player of the Year trophy three times and had scored more than 140 goals in nearly 400 games for Legia Warsaw. After some careful negotiating by chairman Peter Swales and secretary Bernard Halford with the Polish military authorities (£110, 000 and some office equipment!), manager Tony Book was finally able to offer the cultured midfielder his debut in a 2-1 home defeat by Ipswich on November 25th. He played in 14/3 games of that 1978/79 season and maintained his goalscoring ratio, finishing on a high with six goals in the last five league games. He was injured in only the second game of the 1979/80 season at Middlesbrough, returning to action six games later and was immediately on the scoresheet again in a 2-1 win at Leeds. It was the first of three goals in four games for this most skilful of players. Other niggling injuries followed, making it a stop-start time for Deyna who'd end the season with six goals from 22/1 games in all competitions. With the arrival of new manager John Bond in October 1981, City's fortunes began to improve after the earlier disappointments of Tony Book and Malcolm Allison. Unfortunately Deyna did not fit into Bond's plans and he moved to NASL side San Diego Sockers for an undisclosed fee on 28th January 1981. His playing career at Maine Road took in a brief but enjoyable 38/5 games and 13 goals. He played a further four years in San Diego and after retiring from playing, stayed on in California to coach youngsters. He was just a month short of his 42nd birthday when he was tragically killed in a road accident in September 1989.

an amazing player. so pleased when we got him.

just a point though, the nearest we have had to silva is bernabia.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

I was on HMS Active in 1983 and we went to San Diego and we played a game while we were there and Kazzy had someting to do with the coaching of their local soccer team, met him after the game and he was a Gentleman, chatting away about the good times he had at Maine Road. Avery nice man indeed.
Nobby_31

He played for San Diego Sockers. I know, I played with him (and Ade Coker, if anyone remembers that ex-Hammer?). Very nice man.

 

[m7mcfc]

Brilliant player thought about him a few weeks ago when I saw a Bonieck lookalike walking down Market street.

 

[petrusha]

His high-water mark with us came in the week when he scored the only goal in successive 1-0 wins at Maine Road in October 1979, against Boro on the Wednesday night and then Forest, reigning European Cup holders, on the Saturday.

I think Big Mal referred to the Forest game as our 'O' levels, and the up and coming Liverpool game as our 'A' levels, we failed our 'A' levels spectacularly, as we often did against the red dippers at Maine Road, not even Deyna could save us.

Yes, Liverpool was the next home game, at the end of the month. They beat us 4-0, and carry Mal's metaphor through, they really gave us a lesson that day. Men against boys stuff. I do recall that we attacked them and gave it a real go, earning praise from Bob Paisley, who said that few teams were prepared to try and give them a match in the way we attempted.

However, the autumn did give us some hope. After the Forest game, we were eighth with eleven games gone. And the next home game after Liverpool was against United, who went into that one top of the league (they were eventually runners-up to Liverpool). It was a day to encourage optimism, as the expensive buys showed why Mal had wanted them. Daley had a great game in that one, dominating the midfield, while Robinson led the line superbly and scored a great goal. By Christmas, having played exactly half our fixtures, we were 12th, but a lot of teams were packed very closely together. We were two points off fourth spot and three points off third.

I think everyone knew that we were too inconsistent to have any legitimate hopes of making an impression that high off the table. And I still thought that Mal's reconstruction had been far too radical, with the biggest buys vastly overpriced. But it did look as though something half decent was coming together. People seemed to feel that perhaps we could finish in the top ten with a team capable of improving from there.

Deyna was a big part of that. He was the one player in the side capable of doing something a little bit different, of producing a moment of magic to turn a game. He'd arrived part way through the 1978/9 season and, having arrived from 1970s Communist Warsaw to face both a style of football and a style of life totally alien to him, he took a long time to settle in.

Didn't work out, of course. However, just for a few weeks, it did look like Deyna and City might prosper together. Anyway, as others said, it was a privilege to have watched him.

 

[trevorriley]

great player and a gent, not he first foreign player to come over by a long way but start of an era where it became more popular..