Raimonds Dambis

Dambis was born in Dobele, Latvia. As a teenager before World War II he played with Dobele senior teams but after the war, with Daugava Dobele, he played from 1948 to 1949 in the top Latvian league. Later he joined Vulkāns Kuldīga which was a higher level team than Daugava. After the 1952 season the technically skilled forward was invited to play with the strongest club of the Latvian league in the 1950s - Sarkanais Metalurgs Liepāja.

With Metalurgs Dambis won the Latvian league and the Latvian Cup in 1953 and 1954. While in Dobele and Kuldīga Dambis was known as a brilliant goalscorer, with Metalurgs he showed himself as a good passer for Miervaldis Drāznieks and Gustavs Zviedris. He was one of the very few footballers who were not from Liepāja in the Metalurgs squad in the fifties. In 1955 Dambis played with the top Latvian club - Daugava Rīga and scored two goals in the first Soviet league. An injury made him retire from active football in 1955, so Dambis switched to coaching.

From 1958 to 1967 Dambis coached FK Tosmare (later renamed as FK Baltika), in 1961 winning the bronze medals of the Latvian league, in 1965 - the Latvian Cup. From 1968 to 1970 he was the head coach of Zvejnieks Liepāja, in the 1970s for several years he was assistant to Afanasijs Ptičkins in Zvejnieks. After a conflict with Ptičkins Dambis left the club never to work in football again.[1]