We don't live too far from two 'football' i.e. soccer stadiums
for the local teams Cracovia and Wisla. They happen to be big rivals,
and the Cracovia fans are known to get violent and I believe a fan was
killed in the stadium the summer we moved here - I don't (can't) read
the local papers or watch the Polish news so I am not sure exactly what
happened. But, whenever there is a game involving these two teams it's always a big deal. I drove by the Cracovia stadium the other night and tried to take a few pictures but it was hard to capture
the feeling. There were probably 20 riot vans lining the streets and the
riot police were out in full force. It's a bit
scary to be honest. We were told that the Wisla fans are much more civil
and it's a better game to take the family to, so one afternoon we went
to one of their games. It was a lot of work to get there - first you
have to buy a special fan card in order to be able to buy a ticket to
the game - and everyone has to be there in person. So, this can only be
done on a Saturday when the kids aren't in school and Mike isn't at
work. We ended up just going early to the game, waiting on a big fan
line, and then had to go back outside to wait on an even bigger line to
buy tickets. When the guy helping us with the fan cards noticed Mike's Irish rugby jacket that he was wearing,
he asked him if he played rugby (a lot of people think he is an American
football player too). Mike said no but I am not sure the guy believed
him, because he told us we didn't have to wait in the ticket line and
instead he would run out to buy the tickets for us. Of course they
didn't take credit cards (this happens a lot and is a total PITA), so we
had to go outside to drive around to find a cash machine, but the guy gave
us his number so once we got back to the stadium he ran into a back room to get us tickets. It was nice to get the mistaken VIP treatment! It was a fun day and even the kids enjoyed it, but since there was no score Mike declared it another really boring
soccer game.
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| At the Wisla game |
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