1963 Soviet Top League

The 1963 Class A, Pervaya Gruppa (Russian: класс «А», первая группа) was the 25th season of top-tier football league in Soviet Union. Due to reorganization of the Soviet Union football competition by adding an extra tier, this season the top tier was renamed as Class A, Pervaya Gruppa compared to previously named as Class A.

Class A, Pervaya Gruppa

Season	1963
Dates	31 March – 29 November 1963
Champions	Dynamo Moscow 10th Soviet top-tier title
Relegated	Dynamo Leningrad Lokomotiv Moscow Ararat Yerevan Avangard Kharkov Pakhtakor Tashkent
Top goalscorer	Oleg Kopayev (27)
← 1962 1964 →

20 teams took part in the league with FC Dynamo Moscow winning the championship. Spartak Moscow were the defending champions and came second trailing three points behind.

Team changes

Both Baltic clubs Daugava Rīga and Žalgiris Vilnius were relegated the last season to the Class A, Vtoraya Gruppa after finishing in the last two places. There were no new teams promoted to the league due to the reorganization and number of participants was reduced from 22 to 20.

Belarus Minsk changed its name to Dinamo Minsk, Spartak Yerevan changed its name to Ararat Yerevan.

League standings

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Dynamo Moscow (C)	38	21	13	4	47	14	+33	55	League champions
2	Spartak Moscow	38	22	8	8	65	33	+32	52
3	Dinamo Minsk	38	18	12	8	47	27	+20	48
4	SKA Rostov-on-Don	38	20	7	11	73	40	+33	47
5	Dinamo Tbilisi	38	17	13	8	56	42	+14	47
6	Zenit Leningrad	38	14	17	7	45	32	+13	45
7	CSKA Moscow	38	14	17	7	39	27	+12	45
8	Neftyanik Baku	38	18	9	11	48	44	+4	45
9	Dynamo Kyiv	38	16	12	10	68	48	+20	44
10	Torpedo Moscow	38	12	16	10	46	41	+5	40
11	Shakhtar Donetsk	38	11	14	13	29	33	−4	36
12	Torpedo Kutaisi	38	6	21	11	22	37	−15	33
13	Moldova Chisinau	38	8	16	14	27	43	−16	32
14	Kairat Alma-Ata	38	10	12	16	28	47	−19	32
15	Krylya Sovetov Kuybyshev	38	11	7	20	45	53	−8	29
16	Dynamo Leningrad (R)	38	7	15	16	37	51	−14	29	Relegation to Class A Second Group
17	Lokomotiv Moscow (R)	38	5	19	14	37	54	−17	29
18	Ararat Yerevan (R)	38	9	8	21	34	57	−23	26
19	Avangard Kharkov (R)	38	6	13	19	25	56	−31	25
20	Pakhtakor Tashkent (R)	38	4	13	21	44	83	−39	21

Source: rsssf.com
(C) Champions; (R) Relegated

Results

Home \ Away	ARA	AVA	CSK	DYK	DLE	DMN	DYN	DTB	KAI	KRY	LOK	MOL	NEF	PAK	SHA	SKA	SPA	TKU	TOR	ZEN
Ararat Yerevan		0–0	0–1	1–3	1–1	3–0	0–3	1–1	2–0	2–1	1–0	3–1	1–2	5–1	0–0	0–3	0–3	2–0	0–1	3–4
Avangard Kharkov	1–0		0–1	1–1	1–0	1–2	0–0	1–2	1–1	3–1	0–0	2–1	1–1	2–1	0–0	0–2	1–4	1–1	2–0	1–1
CSKA Moscow	0–0	0–0		3–2	4–0	0–2	0–0	3–0	1–0	1–0	2–2	0–0	1–2	1–0	1–0	2–1	1–2	0–1	0–0	0–1
Dynamo Kyiv	5–0	2–0	0–0		3–2	1–0	0–1	5–1	4–1	2–1	0–0	0–0	0–0	4–1	3–1	2–0	2–1	1–1	1–1	0–0
Dynamo Leningrad	4–1	3–2	1–1	1–5		0–0	0–0	2–0	0–0	4–1	1–1	0–0	0–1	0–0	2–0	2–1	0–2	5–0	0–0	1–1
Dinamo Minsk	3–1	2–1	1–1	1–4	2–0		2–0	3–0	3–0	0–0	1–0	2–0	1–0	6–1	0–0	0–2	1–0	1–0	1–1	0–0
Dynamo Moscow	1–0	4–0	1–2	1–1	1–0	0–2		2–0	2–0	2–1	3–1	0–0	3–1	2–0	0–0	3–2	0–0	0–1	1–0	1–0
Dinamo Tbilisi	2–2	4–0	0–0	1–0	3–0	0–0	0–0		3–1	1–0	2–2	3–0	2–0	4–2	2–1	0–1	1–0	1–1	1–0	4–0
Kairat Alma-Ata	2–0	1–1	1–1	1–0	2–0	0–1	0–0	1–2		2–1	0–0	2–0	3–0	1–0	1–0	1–1	0–1	0–0	1–0	1–1
Krylya Sovetov Kuybyshev	2–0	2–0	4–0	3–1	2–2	1–0	0–1	0–0	4–0		1–0	3–3	0–1	1–0	2–0	1–0	1–3	3–0	0–2	0–2
Lokomotiv Moscow	2–1	0–0	0–0	1–1	1–1	0–2	0–2	2–3	1–1	2–2		2–0	2–4	2–0	2–2	1–5	0–1	0–1	1–2	0–3
Moldova Chisinau	2–0	2–0	0–0	1–0	1–0	0–0	1–3	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–0		0–0	4–2	1–0	2–3	0–3	0–0	1–1	1–0
Neftyanik Baku	2–0	1–0	0–1	3–2	2–1	0–4	0–2	1–3	2–1	1–0	3–3	4–2		1–0	1–1	2–1	1–1	2–1	0–0	0–1
Pakhtakor Tashkent	2–2	0–0	1–6	1–1	1–0	2–0	0–4	2–2	1–1	5–2	5–2	1–2	1–5		0–1	0–0	2–2	0–0	0–0	2–4
Shakhtar Donetsk	1–0	1–0	0–3	3–1	2–1	0–0	0–0	1–1	2–0	1–0	0–0	1–0	0–1	3–2		0–1	1–1	2–0	0–0	0–0
SKA Rostov-on-Don	0–1	7–1	1–1	3–3	4–0	3–1	0–0	3–0	4–0	4–1	2–2	2–0	1–0	4–0	3–2		1–0	2–1	2–0	1–3
Spartak Moscow	1–0	2–0	3–0	3–1	3–1	2–2	0–1	2–1	2–0	2–0	1–3	3–0	4–2	4–4	1–0	2–0		1–0	1–2	0–0
Torpedo Kutaisi	2–0	1–0	0–0	1–4	0–0	1–1	0–0	0–0	0–2	1–1	1–1	0–0	0–0	1–1	0–0	1–1	0–1		2–1	0–0
Torpedo Moscow	0–1	3–1	1–1	7–1	1–1	0–0	0–3	1–4	3–0	3–2	0–0	2–2	0–2	3–2	3–1	2–1	2–2	1–1		3–2
Zenit Leningrad	0–0	2–0	0–0	1–2	1–1	2–0	0–0	2–2	3–0	2–1	0–1	1–0	0–0	1–1	0–2	3–1	2–1	2–2	0–0

Source: ^{[citation needed]}
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

Top scorers

27 goals

• Oleg Kopayev (SKA Rostov-on-Don)

21 goals

• Eduard Malofeyev (Dinamo Minsk)

17 goals

• Valentin Ivanov (Torpedo Moscow)

16 goals

• Boris Kazakov (Krylia Sovetov)

15 goals

• Vladimir Barkaya (Dinamo Tbilisi)
• Yuri Sevidov (Spartak Moscow)

14 goals

• Oleh Bazilevich (Dynamo Kyiv)
• Viktor Kanevski (Dynamo Kyiv)
• Gennadi Krasnitsky (Pakhtakor)
• Galimzyan Khusainov (Spartak Moscow)