Date: 27 October 2024 / League: Polish fourth tier
Final Score: 2-2 / Attendance: 950
Experience
Having done this very same fixture just a few months ago, I arrived to KSZO knowing exactly what to expect: a right, royal banger of the finest lower league vintage. Did I get it? And then some…
The day had started well—prior to this fixture, I’d stopped off in the town of Skarzysko-Kamienna to chalk off a stadium that had lingered on my bucket list for centuries (for that, CLICK ME!), but as gratifying as that had proved, the main event was always going to be KSZO v Star, a fifth-tier derby inside one of the more characteristic grounds found in PL.
I must admit, arriving to Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski my mood and expectations divebombed in an instant. For the same fixture at the tail of last season, I had disembarked from the train to find the platform swarmed with a lairy away mob—right from the get-go, it looked like it would be a match to remember.
This time around, the world was in reverse. Alighting from my carriage, I found myself alone on the platform and enveloped in darkness. Leaving the station, matters did not improve. Though the ground doesn’t lie much further than 15 minutes from the station, it wasn’t until I was in touching distance of the floodlights that I saw my first human: the town drunk passed out by a bus stop.
Such sights are not uncommon in Poland on a Sunday evening, but it was mildly unnerving that with just 30 minutes to kick-off, the only soul I’d seen was a bloke twitching in his own vomit. Could this be another dud on the cards?
I’ve got to say, that’s what I thought was coming—on entering the ground, I was chuffed to see home fans filtering in in generous numbers and to also learn that the token food truck was knocking out some truly champion (albeit very foamy) craft beers; but I was a little less thrilled to find that away fans appeared to have been locked out.
With the whistle sounding for the match, Star’s three coachloads remained bolted outside, penned in by the police and chanting the all-too-familiar refrain of Pilka Nozna Dla Kibicow (Football for the Fans) and Pilka Nozna Bez Policja (Football without Police).
This is never a good sign—in fact, in Poland, these songs alone are usually a precursor for away fans to give up on gaining entry and buggering off back whence they came. Drat!
But not so fast… Just as I was losing hope, in they streamed on about the 20th minute, an entry that prompted the home section to empty to seek confrontation behind the stand. With my good-self already stalking the touchline with my camera this wasn’t the finest news—by the time I’d made it to where the chaos was, the fracas was over with just clouds of pepper spray to suggest anything had gone down.
Still, the night was by no means over. Playing in a pleasingly menacing atmosphere, Star took the lead on 53 minutes, giving their 150-strong following more reason to rattle the evening air with gleeful songs of triumph. Eleven minutes later, it was seemingly game over, with Star adding a second to their tally.
Undeterred, KSZO’s fans responded by upping the volume even more. The night was about to begin in earnest.
On the stroke of 70-minutes, KSZO’s chaps finally unfurled the banner drop they’d been preparing while simultaneously setting off a motherlode of orange and black smoke bombs. With all eyes on the show, a handful of lads from KSZO’s newly formed youth pack snuck onto the pitch and used the smokescreen as cover to dart up the touchline and launch a raid on the away pen.
And who was at hands to capture this quality manoeuvre, none other than this fearless correspondent!
Though put into quick retreat, the actions of the A-Team served to amp the atmosphere up even further—to which the team responded. With fireworks zipping into the night sky, and the pitch covered in the soupy fog of pyro, a consolation goal arrived on the 80th minute.
Could a comeback really be on the cards? Yes! Unbelievably, yes! With only two minutes left on the clock, and Star’s defenders visibly looking nervy, KSZO pulled level to send the crowd bananas. Wow, the noise. The effing, jeffing noise.
I often lament that the best days of Polish football are over, and these they are—but here was a night that bucked the trend. Ten out of ten and one for The Webber Book of Polski Classics. A lower league humdinger that ticked every box. Why do I travel up and down the country? For matches and memories that are made of this. Magic.
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