Polonia Warsaw: One big question mark

I’ve not written about Polonia for a long time.  Back in the autumn when they were winning game after game it was a lot easier to put digital pen to digital paper.  Polonia were playing great football, attacking menacingly down the wings and had two quality strikers in Łukasz Teodorczyk and Vladimir Dvalishvili to finish the chances.

The story during the winter break was unfortunately one of abject financial mismanagement under the inept club owner Ireneusz Król , forcing the sale of the players who had made Polonia a joy to watch.  Teodorczyk left to Lech Poznań, Dvalishvili and Brzyski to Legia, Djorde Cotra to Zagłębie Lubin, Adam Kokoszka to Śląsk Wrocław and Marcin Baszczyński to Ruch Chorzów.  Polonia had been decapitated on the field.

The team that emerged once the Ekstraklasa got under way was not able to play with the abandon that had characterised them in the autumn.  The clearest problem has been the lack of a striker to hold the ball up and to finish the chances which players such as Paweł Wszołek and Jacek Kiełb have still been creating.  Young attacker Miłosz Przybecki has at times set the pulses racing and Łukasz Piątek and Tomasz Hołota have held things together in midfield but it hasn’t been the same.  Indeed after a great win in Poznań at the beginning of March, Polonia’s form has nosedived, going eight games without a victory before last Friday’s success against Podbeskidzkie Bielsko Biała.  It hasn’t been terrible by any means but it has been difficult to watch at times.

However events on the pitch have unfortunately taken a back seat recently after news emerged that Polonia were unlikely to receive a licence to play in next season’s Ekstraklasa.  Król has continued to not pay his players, with Polonia’s debts ballooning to two million zlotys (approximately £500k).  Without a licence Polonia would tumble to at least the 5th Polish tier, a humbling fall for a club with a long and proud history.

After all the waiting Polonia were finally denied a licence yesterday.  They have the right to appeal, meaning that if they find the money to repay their players by the end of May, an ignominious relegation will be avoided.  Indeed the latest news is that Polonia may have found a new kit sponsor which may allow them to keep them in the Ekstraklasa.  There have also been attempts by influential Polonia fans and a rather more shady company from Cameroon to buy the club from the bankrupt Król.  So options are out there.

Polonia are a club with many friends in the capital and, should the money not be found, their drop to the 5th tier might not be the disaster it seems at first glance.  The standard of football in the Polish lower leagues is not strong and the club would surely make its way back to the top tier relatively speedily.  Their fall down the leagues would also give them the chance to get rid of Król, their debts and allow them to start afresh.

The next fortnight will no doubt be full of intrigue behind the scenes at Polonia.  But the club will live on if they get a licence or not.  Polonia nie zginie!

A rather enjoyable day: Warsaw Klasa A III: Gwardia Warszawa 1 Walka Kosów 0

This weekend I unfortunately didn’t get the chance to get to Polonia’s game with Podbeskidzkie Bielsko Biała due to teaching commitments.  I still haven’t watched a Polonia victory live and it was thus sod’s law that they took the opportunity to record their first win in nine games.  To get my fix of live football I decided once more to head along to a Gwardia Warszawa game.  Gwardia are quickly becoming my second team in Warsaw and this was my third home match in a row.

My trips to Gwardia have coincided with an upturn in form for the Harpagony.  Before yesterday’s game Gwardia had won four consecutive games, not bad for a team with a 24 year old manager and a stadium surrounded by a perimeter fence.  Gwardia’s victories have seen them rise up the Warsaw Klasa A III table, giving them an outside chance of promotion.  Their opponents in yesterday’s match were Walka Kosów a club from the village of Wólka Kosowska, 20 kilometres South-West of Warsaw.  Walka had helped Gwardia out recently by taking points off their promotion rivals RKS Sarmata.  Sarmata lost on Saturday, meaning a Gwardia win would take them to within five points of a promotion place with a game in hand.

Gwardia had bad news in the build-up to yesterday’s match.  The Police owners of their stadium have once more threatened to prevent the side from playing home games if they do not pay extortionate rental costs.  I thus headed to Racławicka 132 not sure if the game would go ahead or not.  Getting off the bus I moved along the path to the ground and was happy to see Gwardia and Walka players warming up on the side of the pitch.

I met up with Norbert who runs a Gwardia blog to, as he says, ‘show that Gwardia is still alive.’  It was great to have a chat to someone who’s followed the club for a long time.  Norbert started watching Gwardia games when they were still playing in the Polish second division.  He regaled me with stories of Gwardia away trips, experiences of relegation and promotion and memories of when over 2,000 people went to Harpagony games.  He also told me of the ridiculous demands the Police are making of Gwardia and the slow death of the club over the last couple of years.  It was a really nice experience and Norbert and other Gwardia fans made me feel most welcome with a series of hearty hand-shakes.

As to the match itself Gwardia started off the stronger and in the 4th minute their combative striker Widelski scored a quite wonderful goal.  A cross came over from the left wing and Widelski, with his back to goal, somehow managed to produce a back-heel lob which looped over the keeper and nestled in the far corner.   It was quite a goal for the 7th tier of Polish football.

The goal was however not representative of Gwardia’s performance on the day, perhaps they felt they couldn’t live up to their striker’s audacious bit of skill.  The rest of the first half was relatively even with both Gwardia and Walka attacking in equal measure.  The most interesting thing in the first half were things happening off the pitch.  The Police had sent several security guards out to make sure no-one climbed over the perimeter fence and sit in the stands.  Several times these guards headed off to get Gwardia fans who had climbed the fence to come back to the ‘legal’ side.  The irony was a lot of other fans got into the stadium from another side and were not bothered whatsoever. It was all very surreal and we got to half-time with the score 1-0 to Gwardia.

The second half was unfortunately dominated by Walka who had most of the ball with Gwardia dropping way too deep.  The entire half we had the sneaking feeling that Walka would get the equaliser and if that happened I’m sure they’d have gone on and got the win.  The team from Wólka Kosowska must have had seven or eight free-kicks close to Gwardia’s goal but every time a Harpagon defender got it clear or their goalkeeper claimed the ball bravely.  At one point the Walka manager got so annoyed with the lack of a breakthrough he bawled at the referee who had no choice but give him a yellow card.

With Walka putting everything into attack Gwardia had several chances on the break and almost extended their lead.  In one last attempt to equalise Walka sent up their rather plump goalkeeper for a free-kick, fortunately for Gwardia the delivery was poor.

So the Harpagony came away with a 1-0 win, their fifth in a row, giving them continued hope of an unlikely promotion to the Liga Okręgowa (6th tier).  Norbert, basking in the rosy glow of victory, was nice enough to give me a lift home afterwards.  It might have been overcast in Warsaw but a little bit of sunshine found its way to Norbert and Gwardia yesterday.

Warsaw Klasa A III table from 90minut.pl

If anyone feels they can help Gwardia financially get in touch and I’ll pass your details on to Norbert.

Majówka

We’re slowly coming to the end of a long holiday weekend in Poland.  Each year Poles get both May 1 (International Worker’s day) and May 3 (Polish Constitution day) off from work.  On bad years one of these days will fall on the weekend and part of the holiday is lost.  This year was a good year, with the holidays falling on Wednesday and Friday, meaning that in practice most Poles had a five day weekend.  These long weekends (called by Poles Majówka) are special events in the Polish holiday calendar as the whole country sets off to the mountains or the lakes and aims to consume huge amounts of Kiełbasa (Polish sausage) and one or two piwos (beers).

My Majówka consisted of travelling with my girlfriend to the Kielce area, equidistant between Kraków and Warsaw, to walk in the hills which surround the town.  Interestingly enough this coincided with Polonia Warsaw’s trip to Korona Kielce on Friday night.  Indeed we would have gone to the game (there wasn’t much else to do in the evening) if it wasn’t for the fact I had left my passport back in Warsaw.  We instead decided to find a pub to watch the game in the small town of Opatów, close to where we had walked during the day.  Unfortunately we couldn’t convince a pizzeria owner to show the match so we missed Polonia’s 1-1 draw in Kielce.

Opatów

This weekend’s weather was hardly the best, with grey skies and rain throughout most of the country.  As is so often the case the sun came out as soon as we got back to Warsaw.  In order to make up for the sun we were owed, we headed for a walk in Warsaw’s expansive Park Skaryszewski.  As it happened our walk took us past Drukarz Warszawa’s ground.  Several weeks ago I had the chance to see Drukarz play on their artificial pitch, but now I was able to have a look at where they normally play their games.

I have to say I was impressed with what I saw.  I may have been affected by the weather and the holiday atmosphere but Drukarz seemed to have a lovely, well looked-after pitch with around 1000 or so seats laid out on one side of the ground.  It all felt very cosy and welcoming.  A youth team was in action and there was the usual collection of parents out on walks and teenagers taking in a bit of the game.

Just before full-time we set off home with a warm feeling inside.  It was a lovely way to end what had been, weather-wise, a relatively dreary Majówka.

Warsaw Groundhopping: Warsaw Klasa A Group III: Gwardia Warszawa 1 Anprel Nowa Wieś 0

Today was a special day in my groundhopping odyssey in Warsaw.  I got to visit the stadium of Gwardia Warszawa, a place I’ve wanted to see since I wrote an article about the club in January.  Gwardia (nicknamed the Harpagony – the harpies) is a very successful team by Warsaw standards, one of only four of the city’s clubs to have appeared in the Polish top league and one with a number of European appearances under its belt.  Now playing in the Polish 7th tier, the Klasa A, Gwardia possesses a gigantic, crumbling old stadium.  In other words it’s a mecca for the Warsaw groundhopper interested in a bit of history.

I had planned to go to a Gwardia game ever since the Polish lower leagues got back under way in March.  Unfortunately the long-lasting winter on the banks of the Vistula prevented Gwardia from playing at home until today.  I thus resolved to get myself along to their match with Anprel Nowa Wieś, a team who sat third in the table before the weekend’s fixtures.  Gwardia themselves sat in a mid-table 7th.  In the previous meeting of the two sides, Anprel had hammered Gwardia 6-1, would the Harpagony be able to do better this time?

In early afternoon I met up with some friends to watch my English team Reading confirm their relegation to the Championship.  Whilst my mates got ready to see Arsenal-United I left the warm pub to find Gwardia’s ground.  A combination of the metro and a tram got me to the stadium in the Warsaw area of Mokotów relatively easily, I now had to negotiate my way in.

This was easier said than done.  The main gates were locked, so I wandered round the perimeter looking for a gap.  After a while of searching and growing irritation at the lack of an entrance I realised there was a way in through a side-entrance after all.  I thus made my way through it and headed off towards the pitch.

Unfortunately this was where the fun ended.  Since the summer Warsaw’s Main Police Headquarters, who own Gwardia’s stadium, have put up wire-netting around the stands as the club cannot afford to pay their rent.  This meant the only way to watch the match was through a perimeter fence along with 20 or 30 or so other hardy fans.   Frankly it was ridiculous that fans who wanted to watch their team had to do so in this fashion.

Warning: No entrance to the stands!

Despite the not-so-perfect view we did our best to absorb the match.  It was a rather surreal experience, not just because of the fence but also due to the massive bowl of a stadium without anyone in it.  The only sound came from the Gwardia and Anprel players, who filled the air with Polish swearwords.  As to the game itself the first half was relatively even and ended 0-0.  The second half was a lot better and was, in the main, dominated by the all-in-blue Harpagony.  Ten minutes into the second half Gwardia’s industrious right-winger put in a good cross and their striker headed it into the net.  1-0 to Gwardia and they had a number of good chances to put the game out of Anprel’s reach.  There were some nervy moments towards the end when Anprel had a decent penalty appeal turned down but Gwardia did enough to see out the win.

So Gwardia came away with a good victory which keeps them in mid-table, 10 points off a promotion spot with 10 games to play.  They were well worth the win and if they keep up this standard they still have an outside chance of advancing to the Liga Okręgowa (6th level).  After the final whistle the several fans who were present set off for home in the late evening sunshine.  It is to be hoped that some kind of understanding can be reached between the club and the stadium’s owners.  It really is a sad sight to behold when people have to watch their beloved club through a massive perimeter fence.  I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.  Good luck to Gwardia in the future.  This is rightbankwarsaw signing off.

Warsaw Groundhopping: Łódź-Mazovian III Liga: KS Ursus Warszawa 0 OKS Start Otwock 0

Yesterday I donned my travelling shoes and set off to south-west Warsaw to watch the Łódź-Mazovian III Liga (4th tier) encounter between Ursus Warszawa and fellow Warsaw area side OKS ‘Start’ Otwock.  Ursus are having a successful season and before yesterday’s game they sat in 3rd position, five points off the leaders Legionovia Legionowo, OKS on the other hand are comfortably ensconced in mid-table.

Ursus are a relatively successful club by Warsaw standards; in the 1970s they twice finished as high as 5th in the Polish second division and in the summer of 1978 even famously beat the mighty Górnik Zabrze.  By the millennium they had however slipped to the 5th tier of Polish football and were only promoted back to the 4th tier in 2010.  Since then they have steadily improved their league position year after year.  OKS have a rather less illustrious history but they finished as high as third in the third tier in 2009 before being relegated two years ago.  So two relatively decent clubs by local standards.  After two recent trips to LIga Okręgowa (6th tier) games I was interested to see what the standard of football would be like.

Ursus sits right on the other side of the city from Warsaw’s right bank and a trip is relatively arduous due to the poor coverage of the Warsaw metro.  After an hour, and a change of buses, I finally arrived in Ursus and set about finding the ground.  First of all though I had to locate a cash machine.  Last week Ursus brought in an entrance fee of 5 zlotys (£1), a move which was met with uproar from part of the club’s fanbase.  In Poland it seems that few people want to pay even a symbolic entrance fee when it comes to 4th tier football!  Anyway I had no money on me, so after getting some out I made my way to the club’s stadium.

At the ground a man had a little table set up taking people’s entrance fees.  I was given a small printed ticket which the security guard ripped in half, I was quickly searched and I was in!

No animals!

My first thought on entering the stadium was the relaxed and family oriented nature of the site.  There was one main stand in which the majority of fans were sitting, these consisted of several drunk men, parents with kids and local teenagers with nothing better to do on a late Saturday afternoon.  On top of that behind the stand was a basketball court, on one side there was a community swimming pool and little kids whizzed around the boundary of the pitch on bikes with their stabilisers on.  It was a surprisingly communal and pleasant experience.

As for the match itself, OKS started off the stronger, Ursus seemed intent on lumping balls up to their strikers, whereas the team from Otwock looked to build play from the back.  Despite their superiority there was a severe lack of goalmouth action and the first half was a pretty drab affair.  It was slightly livened up by the presence of Ursus and Otwock ‘Ultras” section who sang a bit at various points of the match.  My favourite chant was when the Ursus ultras belted out from behind the goal ‘OTWOCK POKONAMY!!!’ (WE WILL BEAT OTWOCK!!!’) and one drunk guy in the main stand shouted back ‘I URSUS KOCHAMY!!!’ (AND WE LOVE URSUS!!!).

The Ursus ‘ultras’ from a safe distance

OKS fans

At half-time I took a stroll round the pitch and tried to find something to eat, quite a lot of the Ursus support seemed to leave the ground at half-time (most of them made it back for the second half).  There didn’t seem to be any food stands so I went into the swimming pool building and got myself a coke and some crisps in time for the restart.

Ursus re-emerge for the second half

The standard of play from Ursus after the interval was much improved.  Ursus did a much better job of keeping the ball on the floor and put much more pressure on the OKS defensive line.  They were assisted in this by bringing on former Polonia youth team players and attacking midfielders, Kamil Rytel and Patryk Kamiński, who were much more adept at playing a passing game.  Rytel came on at half-time and immediately looked to play one-twos with Ursus’s frontmen.

 

Kamiński appearance in the 66th minute especially improved Ursus’s play.  Kamiński, a former OKS player, was once one of the stars of both the Polonia and then Legia youth systems and even had a trial at Southampton.  Since then his career has taken a turn for the worst, playing for OKS and 3rd tier East leaders Wisła Płock.  Transferred to Ursus in January and still recovering his fitness, yesterday’s performance suggests he will be a key player in the Warsaw team’s promotion push.  Whenever he got the ball he looked to play interesting passes and his influence meant that by the end of the game Ursus were well on top.  Unfortunately they weren’t able to make the breakthrough and the game ended 0-0.

So the crowd and I headed off towards the exits, I enjoyed my afternoon at Ursus, and I aim to be back before long.  Next week’s mission.  Get to watch Gwardia Warszawa in the A Klasa (7th tier) against Anprel Nowa Wieś and there’s also the small matter of Polonia Belchatów on Saturday.  Check back with me for more then.

Warsaw Groundhopping: Liga Okręgowa Group One: Olimpia Warszawa 1 AON Rembertów 3

My most recent groundhopping adventure started innocuously enough.  I finished work at around 16.30 and took the metro back into the city centre.  It’s been an amazingly warm, almost summer day in Warsaw and getting into town Varsovians, having just escaped the dark days of winter, were enjoying the opportunity en masse to be outside in the sun.  Enthused by the weather and realising there was a pretty much full lower league program I decided to make my way to the nearest league match.  After searching for a while on my smart phone I discovered the closest live match was a Liga Okręgowa encounter between Olimpia Warszawa and AON Rembertów at Olimpia’s stadium in the Warsaw district of Wola.  I had already missed most of the first half, but by hopping on a bus I figured I could catch the second 45.

Jumping on the 171 bus I set off for Olimpia’s ground.  The bus was packed and due to traffic it crawled its way towards my destination, past Warsaw’s cinematic landmark Kino Femina and the newly built Muzeum of the History of the Polish Jews.  Entering the stadium I was met with a bank of concrete and some Legia graffiti, rather unwelcoming it has to be said for a Polonia fan like me.

I found myself a place to watch the match alongside the touchline and soaked in the atmosphere.  Once more (I’m sensing a pattern) the people watching the game were a mixture of young guys who had some link to club, old men having a bit of a walk and parents with little kids.  The stands on either side of the ground were almost completely empty, I’d say around 100 people in total were at the game.  No-one was singing and the quality of play was a lot weaker than what I’d seen at the weekend at the Drukarz match.

Both teams are unfortunately at the moment struggling towards the bottom of the division.  Olimpia in blue seemed to be severely lacking in quality, mostly resorting to hoofs up the pitch, at no time did they seem to have control of the game.  AON, in black, were leading 2-1 at half-time and they had just that little bit more composure on the ball.  It was no surprise that mid-way through the second half they made it 3-1.  A corner was floated over from the left, the centre forward got a good header in which was parried by Olimpia’s goalkeeper right to the feet of an AON attacker, who put it home.   After that Olimpia’s players heads went down and hardly created anything of note.  The referee blew the final whistle to the joy of the AON players and the consternation of the Olimpia fans who trailed off towards the exits.

All that was left was to find my bus and make my way home.  Join me on Saturday when I watch III Liga (4th tier) promotion chasing Ursus Warszawa’s home game against fellow Warsaw area side Start Otwock.  I don’t know about you but I can’t wait.

Warsaw groundhopping: Warsaw Liga Okręgowa Group One, Drukarz Warszawa 5 Wicher Kobyłka 2

My intention this weekend was to get to a Gwardia Warszawa game, a team that I wrote about in January, unfortunately their match was called off due to the melting of Warsaw’s snow and the heavy rain that followed throughout the day on Friday.  Searching frantically for a lower-league game to go to I discovered that my local team Drukarz Warszawa were playing at 11am Saturday morning.  I resolved to forego my normal weekend lie-in to watch a bit of live football.

Drukarz are the largest football club in Praga, the less financially developed right-bank of the Vistula river, which isn’t saying too much to be honest.  Set up in 1926, as the club of the city’s printing presses, in the inter-war period the football team was relatively successful in the Warsaw area’s provincial leagues.  Since the war the club has continued to flit about in the lower echelons of the Polish league pyramid.  Not able to light up the reaches of the higher leagues, Drukarz has instead focused on its youth system bringing through the likes of future Polish internationals Marcin and Michał Żewłakow and Dariusz Dźwigała the current assistant coach of Jagiellonia Bialystok and father of Jaga defender Adam Dźwigała.

Drukarz’s fortunes took a positive turn several years ago when its stadium was selected as a training base for Euro 2012 teams.  In this regard Drukarz were lucky as their ground lies within five minutes walking distance of the brand new Polish national stadium.  As a result the club received funds to renovate their ground and in 2011 were able to build a brand-new artificial pitch known ironically as the ‘Praga Wembley’.  This season Drukarz are doing very well in the Warsaw Liga Okręgowa (6th tier) group one: before yesterday’s match they were top of the division with 36 points from 17 games and a +28 goal difference.  Their opponents for the match were Wicher Kobyłka, themselves flying high in third place.

With my head slightly fuzzy after a rather poor night’s sleep I set off to find Drukarz’s ground.   Yesterday was the first proper spring day in Warsaw, the sun was shining brightly and even at 10am it was nice and warm.  I got the tram to Park Skarzyszewski, a grand park close to Warsaw’s exclusive Saska Kępa neighbourhood, and very soon saw a small stream of people heading towards the Praga Wembley.  As a result of the previous day’s downpour it turned out the match would take place on Drukarz’s artificial pitch.

I had a walk around the perimeter of the ground and watched the two teams warming up.  I then made my way to the main entrance and found myself a place to sit on the benches set out along the touchline.  A crowd of perhaps 70 or so hardy souls were present to watch the game.  These included the following types:  A bunch of middle-aged men with moustaches, who chatted throughout the match about Drukarz, Legia, the Champions League and a mix of other football topics, about 15 or so Drukarz ‘Ultras’ who spent certain parts of the game belting out a selection of songs and several players’ wives and girlfriends.  During the match we were joined by people walking dogs and a couple of other parents with their children who stopped by for a while only to later wander off.

In terms of the match itself Drukarz started off in fine style.  The referee granted a penalty to the home side after 10 minutes and their big number 9 put it away with aplomb.  Drukarz were well on top and by half-time added another two more goals to make it 3-0.  Wicher were not able to cope with the pace and physicality of Drukarz, something perhaps not surprising as Wicher’s last competitive match had been in early November!

The second half started out a little more brightly for Wicher, who made it 3-1 early within 5 minutes of the restart.  However Drukarz once more imposed themselves onto the match and scored another two decent goals.  Drukarz had the match won, and although Wicher got a goal back to make it 5-2, Drukarz were not troubled further.

So Drukarz cemented their position as leader of the division but with Wicher still having games in hand and PKS Radość and Dolcan Ząbki II also close behind, the end of the season should be interesting.  As for my impressions I was pleasantly surprised with the standard of football on show and I really enjoyed sitting out in the sun for a couple of hours watching a game.  I’ll definitely be back.  DRUKARZ GOL!