Alexander GovorovSport correspondentAll materialsAlexander Berketov was one of the stars of the powerful «Rotor» of the 90s, who fought with «Spartak» for the championship. He could play anywhere, but for a long time he was devoted to Volgograd football and was ready to drag it from the bottom. And at the age of 46, a blood clot broke off and his heart stopped. «I grew up in a gangster district» Berketov was born and raised in Volgograd and is a graduate of the Rotor sports school. However, his first professional club was Tekstilshchik from Kamyshin. It is curious that the team from the Volgograd region then thundered throughout the country. Under the guidance of coach Sergei Pavlov in the 90s, Tekstilshchik played in European competitions and fought for medals in the Russian championship. However, Rotor was still the main team in the region, which in 1993 became the silver medalist of the championship. Alexander moved there, who at the age of 18 quickly became a player in the main squad. The Ukrainian coach Viktor Prokopenko believed in him very much, who saw great prospects in him. And this despite the fact that the previous mentor of Volgograd Vladimir Salkov categorically did not see the young guy in the squad. He called him slow-moving, although Berketov at that time played both in the youth and in the Russian Olympic team. But it was Prokopenko who opened the way for Alexander to big football and believed in him. Berketov's youth passed in difficult times for the country, which the footballer himself later recalled more than once. from home to a sports boarding school. Since the eighth grade, my independent life has practically begun — school, training, school, training. They didn’t think about anything else, «the Sports Fiction portal quotes Berketov as saying.
