FK Venta

FK Venta were a Latvian football club based in Ventspils. They were established in 1964 and went bankrupt in 2005.

Club history

The club was founded in 1964 as Naftas bāze, in its debut season in the Latvian league it finished 6th from 14 teams. In 1965 the club name was changed to Osta and it earned silver medals in the Latvian league. In 1967 Osta won the

Elektrons Rīga

. In 1968 the club was renamed to – FK Venta, it reached the cup finals again in 1968 and 1969 but lost both times.

In 1969 Venta won the first Latvian league title for Ventspils under Vladimirs Čikiņovs, a former FK Daugava Rīga footballer. Half of the 1969 league winners were local Ventspils footballers, while the others were from various places, mostly from Belarus. As the Latvian league was officially an amateur competition, for 3 months a year the Venta players had to work in the city port. In 1970 Venta finished second in the league but then the results started to decline and after the 1982 season the club lost most of its financial support. Venta could not complete the 1983 season and was expelled from the league after having lost its first 19 matches.

Until 1988 Venta mostly under different names played in the lower Latvian leagues, but in 1988 it returned to the top Latvian league under the name Zvezda, in their squad it had one of the future defenders of the

Virslīga (thanks to decline of playing in Virslīga by FK Vecrīga

).

Later Ventspils emerged as a new football club under the name of Venta. In 2004 they finished second in the Latvian

FC Dynamo Kiev

veteran. However the club's finances soon proved to be a bubble, the famous players soon left the club, by midseason it barely had enough footballers to form a starting 11 and after the season it went bankrupt.

Honours

Latvian top league:
- Winners: 1 (1969)
- Runners-up: 2 (1965, 1970)
Latvian Cup
:
- Winners: 1 (1967)
- Runners-up: 2 (1968, 1969)