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.
