In 1936 the first secretary of Komsomol Kosarev came up with an idea of playing an actual football game at the Red Square as part of the Physical Culture Day parade. Stalin never attended any sports events, but the Physical Culture Day was an exclusion to the rule. The 1936 Physical Culture Day parade was directed by Russian theatre director Valentin Pluchek. For the football game, a giant green felt carpet was sewn by Spartak athletes and laid down on the Red Square's cobblestones. A night before the parade, the rug was stitched together in sections, rolled up and then stored in a vestibule of the GUM department store located at the square. Following the 1936 Red Square game, it became a tradition before the World War II and part of the Physical Culture Day parade event.