Georgios Daispangos (Greek: Γεώργιος Νταϊσπάγγος; 1910 –27 July 1986) was a Greekfootballer who played as a defender for AEK Athens in the 1930s. Throughout different periods of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, he served as the manager of the first team and all the departments of the academies of AEK. He was one of the pioneers of Greek football and one of the "Patriarchs" of the club. He was renowned for his huge service to AEK Athens.
Club career
Early years
Daispangos was born in 1910 in Piraeus and fate brought him at the age of 14 to Neo Faliro as a footballer of Asteras Piraeus, to watch a newly founded team with origins from Constantinople, AEK Athens. The 14-year-old Daispangos was "enchanted" from the technical football AEK were playing at the time and set a goal to one day wear the yellow-black jersey and become a teammate with the players that looked like heroes, in his childish eyes. His admiration for AEK was proverbial and as he narrated, in 1927 when he was at the age of 17, he ran away from his home to follow the team on a trip. It was Clean Monday and Daispangos lied to his mother that he was going to the tailor shop, only to follow AEK from Piraeus to Chelidonou in Kifissia, a distance that in those years was very long, as Kifissia was considered countryside for the Athenians, furthermore to people from Piraeus, like Daispangos.
AEK Athens
AEK at 1932 Cup.
He was invited to AEK in 1929 by the then coach, Josef Sveg and played for the club for 6 consecutive years next to the legends of the club, such as Kostas Negrepontis, Stavros Emmanouilidis, Robert Mallios Galić and Themos Asderis. On 8 November 1931, AEK won their first ever trophy, defeating Aris with 5–3 at Leoforos Alexandras Stadium in the Greek cup final, with Daispangos being one of the protagonists of the game alongside Giamalis, Negrepontis and Baltas, who scored a brace.[3] In parallel with football, he worked in his family tailor shop in Piraeus and in fact, was a gifted craftsman as a tailor, until 1928, as he was invited through AEK to work at ULEN (the later EYDAP) in order to have more free time to devote to football. Simultaneously with his job at ULEN, Daispangos also worked at AEK, helping wherever he was asked to. He served from caretaker to masseur and clothing manager. He said that he was very happy at that period in AEK, as he considered it the time that he bonded to the club, since he saw something big was being made in his hands. He retired as a footballer at the age of only 25.[4]
Managerial career
Daispangos experienced the golden age of AEK Athens, before the Occupation of Greece which destroyed everything, including the club. He collected the belongings of AEK and kept the club's property in the small room in his house at Piraeus,[5] before they moved to the house of Rangavis in Kapnikarea square. He lost touch with AEK during that period, but he kept enacting with football coaching Koukouvaounes, until end of the WW2 and the release of Greece, when AEK invited him back to the club. He undertook the task to reorganize the club's academies from the beginning, since Daispangos was also a pioneer for the club and in 1934 managed to create a youth team that produced huge figures of its later history, such as Kleanthis Maropoulos, Michalis Delavinias and Tryfon Tzanetis.
AEK's first youth team in 1934.
Simultaneously to his return and the organization of the team's academies, Daispangos practically acted as the coach of all the divisions of the club. In 1948, when Jack Beby arrived to coach AEK, he received a young team from Daispangos, such as Emmanouilidis, Parayios, Oikonomou, Sevastiadis, Darakis, Papatheodorou and Poulis, with some of players being already international. All the huge figures in the later history of AEK were products of his work. On his side throughout his career were the then curator, Nikos Goumas and the vice-president of AEK, Konstantinos Skouras, father-in-law of Sokratis Kokkalis, the later President of Olympiacos. During 1948 the first rupture in his relations with AEK was created. He was fired and ended up at AO Kifisia and also worked at Daphni Athens, before Apollon Athens called him to coach the club in 1951.[6]
In 1953, AEK called him again and once more he undertook all the divisions of the club, with special emphasis on the departments of the academies, but left in 1955. During that period he produced players such as Vernezis, Melissis, Alafogiannis, Adamantidis and the Argyropoulos brothers.
He later worked for 6 years in clubs, such as Chalandri, Athinaikos, Atromitos,[7] Argos and again in Atromitos in 1960.[8]
A year later, in 1961, Goumas and Skouras returned to the administration of AEK and Daispangos was called to return to AEK, rejecting the proposals of PAOK and Aris. Daispangos came back to AEK on the condition that he would work alongside Tzanetis asking Goumas to take over again the academies, as he considered that they were the weakness of the club. Goumas did not hesitate to assign him to take charge of all departments of the club. In his third and final term, he brought out footballers, such as Karafeskos, Stathopoulos, Simigdalas, Sevastopoulos, Pomonis, Kagianas, Andrikoulas, Kritikos, Lavaridis, Maniateas, Karapoulitidis, Sarris, Kyrmizas, Karakidis, Stefanou, Thivaios, Triantafyllou, Liakouris, Istorios, Psychogyios, Theodoridis, Moschakis, Papaioannou, Giannopoulos, Karoulias, the Karypidis brothers, Papagiannis and Kontopoulos.
In his 19-year presence on its infrastructure departments, AEK wοn 18 titles in total:[9]
Undefeated champions of Athens and FCA Golden Medal with the youth team in 1946–47
Undefeated champions of Athens with the youth team in 1948–49
Champions of Athens with the reserve team in 1953–54
Undefeated champions of Athens with the youth team in 1953–54
Champions of the South Group and undefeated champions of Greece with the youth team in 1963–64
Champions of the South Group and champions of Greece with the youth team in 1964–65
Champions of the South Group and champions of Greece with the reserve team in 1964–65
Champions of the South Group and champions of Greece with the reserve team in 1965–66
Champions of the South Group and undefeated champions of Greece with the reserve team in 1966–67
Champions of the South Group and undefeated champions of Greece with the youth team in 1967–68
Daispangos was one of the founding members of the Hellenic Coaches Association, which served for more than a decade as its General Secretary. He had also been in the first team coach of AEK Athens occasionally, after the 1940s and the 1950s. Moreover in 1967, he sat on the bench of the team in the away games of the Balkans Cup against Vardar, Farul Constanța and Olimpija, since the then coach, Jenő Csaknády could not enter the Eastern states. AEK left undefeated from all 3 matches with equal number of draws.[10] In 1971, Daispangos retired from football after a 42-year presence on and off the pitch.
Personal life
His son, Alekos, played for AEK for 2 seasons, from 1960 until 1962.[11] Daispangos died on 26 July 1987 at the age of 77. His funeral took place at the cemetery of Kokkinos Milos, with the presence of officials from all the football community of Greece.[12]
