Jaroslav Zeman
Sports editor
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Is age really just a number? This can be proven by 72-year-old Jiří Štěpánek, who on Sunday, April 14, will play in the Skalice B jersey in the championship match of the district competition against the reserve Lokomotiva from Českolip.
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In Skalica near Česká Lípa, they paid tribute to teammate Jiří Štěpánek | Photo: Deník/Petr Pokorný
“Jirka regularly goes to football games with us, she is definitely not one of the number. We were thinking that he could start for us. So we called each other and Jirka agreed,” revealed Lukáš Klindera, a soccer player playing for the Skalice reserve team.
Jiří Štěpánek was born on September 27, 1951 in Dubica, Českolipska, right next to the football pitch, so it was probably already then that he was destined that football would be his lifelong hobby.
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“We played good football with the boys in Dubica, then I went to Vagónka to coach Macháček. During the war, I played in Red Star Domažlice and after my return I played again in Lípa, then the regional champion, we were taught by Láď Kuruců, Pepík Vápeníky, Jirko Hendrych, I had a knack for making it to the second league with them,” Štěpánek recalled.
As he recalled, a lot of spectators came to watch football matches back then. The wagon played at a high level. Quality footballers came here, such as Vápeník, Poštulka, Zlámal, Pinter, the Houšková brothers, Soukup and many others. They were led by high-quality coaches: Cyprys, Fišer, Klínský, Sochore, Žůrk, and thus football in Česká Lípa gradually reached the 2nd league, in which it played no inferior role.
