Date: 15 September 2024 / League: Polish sixth tier (I think!)
Final Score: 5-0 / Attendance: approx. 450
Experience
Bangers come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, you remember a game for the epic journey that it took; others, for the stadium itself; or, at times, because of the madness of the weather or the lunacy of the fans. At Dozamet, I had it all.
Let’s get back to the beginning. After a few weeks without travels, I had figured I was in line for another empty weekend after drawing the short straw to again work on Saturday. Curses. So, there I am, sitting in the office, marinating in despairing self-pity when I decided to give the fixtures one last sweep to see if Sunday could offer me reprieve.
It was one of those ‘bloody hell’ moments of ‘how could I miss that?’ Dozamet Nowa Sol v Promien Zary…
That’s not a fixture many will know outside of Poland, and to be fair, that would be for a reason: played in the equivalent of the fifth tier, this was a match for those of discerning taste.
Challenges were aplenty. From Warsaw, the town of Nowa Sol is complex to reach. At least, it is by public transport. Reliant on three different connections being on schedule, it wasn’t until I was on the final train that I felt certain of reaching it in the first place.
And then there was the problem of my hangover. Finishing work late on Saturday evening, I dashed out to attend a mate’s birthday, an event that ended with predictable consequences. When my 4 a.m. alarm starting banging, I’d had a split second of sleep. I was zonked.
Oh, and the weather. With vast swathes of Poland hit by flooding and torrential rains, there was no guarantee that the seven-hour journey would end with a match. With all these variables at play, the worst could be expected.
Somehow, and I’m really not sure how, I did make it for the 1 p.m. kick-off, but I really wished I hadn’t. Two seconds off the train, and I was already soaked to the bone.
However, that this would be a special game revealed itself soon: shivering in the pissing rain, I caught sight of the home mob’s parade to the ground. Already masked up, the 170 home Ultras presented quite a sight.
Guests, too, were arriving – for the first time in ten years, the away pen would be opening for the visiting fans of Promien Zary. They came about 70-handed and found themselves ushered inside a small cage on one flank of the ground.
Though lacking any overt points of interest, as a stadium it felt wonderfully old-fashioned – lots of graffiti left by the home Ultras; a Colditz watchtower for the local radio station; a clubhouse decorated with plant pots; and a simple home stand featuring some strips of faded seating and cracked concrete steps. Who needs more?
Still, it was hard to enjoy any of this given the rain that continued to hammer down. This was brutal.
But if it was bad for me, it was even worse for the Promien Zary – shipping four goals in the first half, they trudged off at half-time in a state of total shellshock.
Forget all that, however, by my reckoning you probably want to hear about the violence. That came, funnily enough, the moment the players trooped off. Down came the home flags, and on came the home fans, about 100 charging over the pitch in a glorious bid to reach Promien Zary in the away enclosure opposite. Intercepted by squads of riot police, their dash was curtailed about 30 seconds in. Leaping back into the home terrace, a three-minute fracas followed with bursts of pepper spray answered by a hail of bottles. Yep, definitely a little old school.
As for the rest of the game, Nowa Sol added a fifth to their account while the relentless rain continued to do its own thing. Final whistle, and time for a pint before squelching back to my train and another seven-hour trip home spent dripping and shivering in an air-conditioned carriage. Football? Bloody love it.
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