On May 5, 1923, the official registration date of the football team of the Metalworkers' Trade Union, which in 1924 won the Luhansk District Championship against the team of the Snizhne mine, was the date of its official registration: Andrii Lavrentiev, Volodymyr Dudarchyk, Hryhorii Bubnov, Kazymyr Limachenko, Mykola Vodolazov, Mykola Morozov, Borys Bruno, Vasyl Vodolazov, Mykola Latyn, Viktor Konrad, and others.
In the second half of the 1920s, the US government recognized the power of the proletarian revolutionaries of the USSR, and in exchange for the “squeezed” valuables, private property, and money from capitalists, the tsarist aristocracy, merchants, churches, and wealthy peasants, investors from overseas agreed to build plants, factories, and vehicles using new technology. Thus, a large-scale reconstruction of the locomotive plant in Luhansk began in 1933 and was completed; the most powerful locomotive in the Soviet Union was assembled, named FED, in honor of one of the prematurely deceased revolutionaries named Dzerzhynsky.
Several thousand peasants were brought to the large construction site, which was nicknamed “Luhanskbud,” from the regions of the Russian republic adjacent to Ukraine, settled in barracks with limited “amenities” and, to prevent them from abusing “intoxicants” during off-hours, involved them in intelligent entertainment, non-alcoholic leisure, and mass physical education and sports.
By the end of the 1920s, two stronger teams, Metalist and Kadiyivka Mine, dominated the Luhansk region. For example, six players from Kadiivka played for the Donbas national team, which successfully toured Germany in 1926 (four wins, two draws, two defeats against local labor teams and city teams).
It is worth noting that the first winner of the Luhansk district in 1924 and the title of champion was won by Metalists from Luhansk.
From the beginning of 1930, seminars were held for production drummers, builders and active sportsmen, sports grounds for volleyball, croquet, skittles were built in the city gardens, and the Zelenyi Hai suburban cultural center was built on the site of a former manor house on the banks of the Donets River, where a football field, handball and fencing areas, a shooting range, swings and a shuttle station were equipped.
The football season began in May, with two dozen teams competing in cities and districts, each match officiated by referees certified by the Council of Sports and Physical Education, and referee protocols kept. On June 03, a football match between the teams of the Moscow club Proletarius and Luhansk Metalists took place at the central stadium of Luhansk District.
After the referee's starting whistle, the guests took the initiative, constantly attacked, had a game and territorial advantage, and shot a lot at the home team's goal. But the cold-blooded actions of their goalkeeper saved them. However, in the 33rd minute they scored the first goal. Before the break, Lokotosh equalized - 1:1. In the first five minutes of the second half, the hosts missed twice. After 15 minutes, the left winger Degtyarev reduced the score, and 10 minutes before the end of the match, the right winger Sytnykov broke through to the Muscovite goal and made it 3-3.
On July 4, the second team of metallurgists traveled to the capital of Donetsk province to play football matches, while simultaneously learning about the sports performance of local mineral miners.
On July 9 in Luhansk, the first team defeated a strong team from the Rubizhne railway station with a score of 4:1.
Among other things, football fans were particularly interested in the matches between Luhansk Metalist and the trade union teams of Novocherkassk (September 23) and the capital of Donetsk Province (October 24). The champion of Luhansk in 1930, quite unexpectedly, was the combined team of the construction and machine-building colleges (which were actually considered higher education institutions at the time).
In the first half of the 1930s, a student football team was formed in Luhansk on the basis of the Mechanical Engineering College, whose players gradually entered the big leagues and later became the backbone of the locomotive plant's team, changing its name from Metalist to Dzerzhynets. The most prominent figure in the team is the newly minted mechanical engineer Hryhorii Nosko. With him in the team, the Luhansk team won the right to participate in the 1932 Ukrainian championship.
In 1934, a network of children's and youth sports schools was created, and competitions between children's teams began to be held. In October of that year, the first Spartakiad of Donbas students was held, and in the final match of the football tournament, the Luhansk student team lost to the students of the capital of Donetsk region - 0:4.
In 1936, Dzerzhynets won the right to play in the Ukrainian SSR Championship of the first group, in 1937 became the champion of the second group, reached the 1/8 finals of the Ukrainian SSR Cup and the 1/16 of the USSR Cup, in 1938 won the championship of the Ukrainian Republic (played 11 matches, won 9 of them and drew 2) and gained the right to play in Group B of the USSR Championship. The composition of the winners: V. Hrebenyuk, H. Svydynskyi, M. Morozov, H. Nosko, H. Mazanov, M. Krasiuk, M. Sukharev, P. Yurchenko, P. Buyanov, V. Movchan, M. Lokotosh, A. Brovenko, A. Tsofnes. The team was coached by an experienced goalkeeper invited from Kharkiv, I.M. Kladko.
Dzerzhynets finished the 1939 season 16th (out of 23) with 19 points, and in the USSR Cup the team again stopped at the 1/16 finals.
In 1940, officials from Bilokamianka resorted to a reform, the number of teams in Group B was reduced to 14 and merged with Group A (Luhansk was only 2 points away from participating in the Soviet Union's championship among the strongest), and Dzerzhynets was again in the first group of the Ukrainian SSR championship.
Due to relegation, the team lost its leading players, including H. Mazanov, M. Krasiuk, and P. Yurchenko. In 1940, Dzerzhynets took fifth place. In 1941, the season did not have time to start in full, there was an invasion of Ukraine by Nazi invaders, I. Kladko, the coach of the first champions of Ukraine from Luhansk region, died on the ground of our region, the war lasted until 1945, there was no football then.
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