Zestafoni

 These youthful looking players represented Zestafoni FC in 1923. Zestafoni is a city in western Georgia, which at the time was a part of the Soviet Union (from 1921 onwards). 

Between 1918 and 1921 Georgia was a Democratic Republic.

In 1918 the first club in Zestafoni was formed by high school students.

In 1920, during the period of The Allied Intervention (an unsuccessfulwestern scheme to undermine the  Revolution) Zestafoni played against a British Military team and won 2-1.

  In 1927 Zestafoni competed in the first republic-wide championship of Georgia.

Dinamo Tbilisi

Football was introduced to Georgia by the ubiquitous British sailors in the early  20th century. There are records of Tbilisi teams as early as 1912,  Sokol ,of the Tbilisi Gymnastics Society, playing fixtures against clubs from Baku. Teams emerged across Georgia in the 1910s and 1920s. The most successful of these was  Dinamo Tbilisi, who in 1936 competed in the Autumn edition of the Soviet Top League  having reached the final of the inaugural Soviet Cup.  The league at the time consisted of 6 Russian and 1 Ukrainian team along with Tbilisi. The Georgian side finished joint second.  Dinamo was founded in 1925 (a branch of the Soviet multi-sports association  having been formed in Tbilisi). The first competitive matches were played early in 1926, a series of games against opponents from Azerbaijan (at the time both Georgia and  Azerbaijan, along with Armenia, were grouped together as the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.Dinamo's first team line up was:  D.Tsomaya, A.Pochhua, N.Blankman, I.Fedorov, N.Anikin, A.Gonel, A.Pivovarov,  O.Goldobin, A.Galperin, S. Maslennikov, V.Tsomaya. 05.02.26: Dinamo (Baku) & Dinamo Tbilisi 06.01.26 Dinamo Tbilisi 0 1 Dinamo (Baku) Lenin Stadium Tbilisi 05.02.26 Dinamo (Baku) 1 1 Dinamo Tbilisi Stadium BSFK and ASPS Baku 07.02.26 Baku Squad 2 0 Dinamo Tbilisi ? 08. 02.26 Progress Baku 1 0 Dinamo Tbilisi Stadium BSFK and ASPS Baku