The Krakow Derby

Last week I attended the Krakow derby. As Danny Dyer would say, the Krakow derby is a naughty naughty fixture. Before going to game I had heard stories and watched documentaries online about Polish football hooligans and in particular the Krakow derby. Almost everyone I spoke to before going to the game warned me about what might happen. I was told that one of the stands would be closed as someone had thrown a knife onto the pitch at the previous game. So I was a bit nervous to say the least, but I went all the same.

The game was held at Wisła's stadium and I was sitting with the Wisła supporters, undoubtedly the safer part of the stadium. Wisła had actually been confirmed as champions the night before the match, which meant that perhaps some of the edge was taken of the match, which had previously been billed as a championship clincher.

The first thing I noticed going to the match was the amount of police and how they are dressed. The police don't mess about in Poland, they are big, strong and carrying weapons (sometimes guns). It is a strange sensation you get because on the one hand you feel safer, seeing so many police, while on the other hand you get a bit nervous, wondering why so many police are necessary in the first place. Another thing about polish football is that it 95% of the supporters are male, and mean looking. I'm not labelling everyone a hooligan but a lot of the people who attend these matches look like the stereotypical hooligan. They are big, shaved head and growling at everyone.

Inside the actual stadium the two sets of fans were kept apart by a physical barrier and rows of police. The Cracovia fans (all 800 of them) were dressed in black jackets. These are the jackets of the Cracovia hooligans, known as anty-Wisła. The Wisła supporters were dressed in red and in a bit of a party mood, owing to them becoming champions before the match had even begun. As you can imagine, the singing during the match contained a lot of swear words and was usually directed at the other team. It was difficult for the small group of Cracovia fans to make themselves heard because everything was directed by the Wisła ultras who were their usual disciplined, choreographed selves.

The action on the pitch wasn't very interesting. Wisła won the match 2-1 but the most entertaining moment was in the final minute when the Cracovia goalkeeper was sent off for a spectacular rugby tackle after he had come forward for a corner.

The action off the pitch was aslo fairly tame and the whole thing passed off relatively peacefully. The usual ritual of scarf burning never took place. There were actually pleas by the club over the loud speaker for supporters to refrain from burning scarves. In Scotland they ask you not smoke in the stadiums, in Poland they ask you not to set fire to the opposition scarves.

Bloody Foreigners

Any of you who are familiar with the Daily Mail will know it's stance in relation to immigration and it's stories about Polish plumbers etc. Well bearing that in mind I'd like to suggest what the column of a Polish version of the Daily Mail might look like. Imagine this opinion piece was written by Richard Littlejohn's Polish equivalent, Ryszard Małyjanek.

Poland has lost control of it's borders!! Since joining the European Union Poland has been over-run by hordes of British stag and hen parties. Cities like Krakow are struggling to cope with the sheer volume of people who come in search of cheap booze. When Poland joined the European Union the government assured us that the numbers coming would be low and managable and would only bring benefits, however their estimations were wrong. Now the focus group "stag party watch" has produced a report showing the true effects and consequences of the problem. The hard hitting report claims that the government has no idea how many stag parties are currently in Poland and that public services, particularly street cleaners and bouncers, are being stretched to the limit. One of the biggest problems cited by the report is that the price of a pint has almost doubled for the average Pole as a result of the strength of the pound. A spokesman for "stag party watch" commented " Poles who have lived here all their lives, paid their taxes and abided by the law are being hit hardest by this sharp increase in beer prices" adding " it's a bloody liberty". A spokesman for the local bars responded to these accusations, "the pints are there but the locals don't want to drink them, the Brits will come and pay the prices, what can you do?". However it's not just beer prices which have been effected by the wave of stag parties. The vast majority of the stag parties which come to Poland don't speak a word of Polish leading to more and more signs and posters being produced in English. A local taxi driver from Krakow commented "they come over here and expect everything to be translated for them into English, it's a bloody disgrace". When we asked for an interview with a government spokesman we were told that no-one was available but they did issue a statement in which they said "all in all the effect of stag and hen parties has been positive". This seems to be at odds with a poll carried out among readers of this paper in which we asked our un-biased and well informed readers "are stag parties to blame for the increase in unemployment, crime, terrorism and bird flu in Poland". The answers were stark. A whopping 93% of people answered yes and in another poll, 90% of people said they believed there should be some of qoutas for stag parties. The evidence is clear and it's time to act. Poland must regain control of it's borders and most importantly it's pubs.

Back after a long break

I realise that I haven't posted anything for a while however (3 months, but who is counting?) that doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything. In fact it's quite the contrary, I've been too busy to post. Well maybe it's a mixture of working too hard and being too lazy. I believe they call that an oxymoron.

So what have I been doing? Firstly, getting to grips with the language. For those of you who have tried to learn Polish, you will know it's quite a tricky language to say the least. I think it's important when you learn any language to study the basic grammar rules. There are people who say they learned a foreign language without ever attending a lesson and without ever looking at a text book, don't believe them. You can learn a lot from going to a country and immersing yourself in the language but you still need some structure, especially for grammar. Vocabulary and expressions you can learn from every day situations, watching TV, listening to music etc, but grammar needs to be taught to some degree. With this in mind I have been making more of a concerted effort to master some of the basic Polish grammar structures.

I have also been reading a bit, especially Polish literature [in English however :( ]. At the moment I'm reading a book by Ryszard Kapuściński. If you like non-fiction and in particular travel writing then Kapuściński is your man. As one of the only Polish journalists able to travel during the socialist times, his stories are unique to say the least. I can honestly say that reading him has encouraged me to re-start writing on this block.

Finally I have done a wee bit of travelling. I visited the famous salt mines of Wieliczka outside Krakow. I also went to Germany for the first time to visit Berlin. By the way it is true what they say about German effeciency. I am also planning to visit the Ukrainian city of Lwow which was once part of Poland, the Berwick of the East.

Spring time has arrived in Poland and it has brought good weather and inspiration so I'm sure this post won't be my last for another 3 months.