Date: 9 February 2024 / League: Polish top flight
Final Score: 0-1 / Attendance: 37,223
Experience
Look who’s back! That’s right, me. Now for the good news – it’s been donkey’s years since I’ve posted as I’ve been tied up on a football-related project that I’ll publicise soon(ish), and whilst I’ve got a backlog of entries from 2023 I need to post, I’m instead going to get straight into the Polish league’s opening game of 2024.
The winter break felt like it’d never end, but Friday saw me finally hit the trains and head south for a highly anticipated opener between Ruch Chorzow and Legia Warsaw. Currently homeless after their stadium was closed due to safety hazards, Ruch have taken up residency of Stadion Slaski, a 55,000-seater that England fans will remember from the 90s.
Myself, I was here doing my national service in 2004, a game that saw a Jermaine Defoe wonder goal and a team sheet featuring the likes of Beckham, Lampard, Gerrard, Cole and best friends forever, Wayne Bridge and John Terry. What a team that should have been. We won 2-1, but much of the match was spent avoiding the seats flying over. That said, my abiding memory will be thousands of children blowing effing trumpets.
Anyhow, twenty years on, and the stadium is unrecognizable following a full-on renovation. From what I saw, the only nod to history has been the preservation of a wonderfully retro mosaic outside the main entrance. Also the same, the lack of lighting in the park. FFS, my hotel was 400-metres away, but I got so disorientated in the darkness afterwards that it took me over an hour to walk back.
These points aside, it’s a stonking stadium, and I’m going to put my neck out and say that I prefer it to the National Stadium in Warsaw. The latter is tighter to the pitch, but you know what, it just doesn’t feel like a football stadium to me – more like an events arena constructed with Taylor Swift gigs in mind. Stadion Slaski, on the other hand, feels like sport comes first and foremost.
Steeped in history, British sides to have played here include a Manchester United side featuring Nobby Stiles and George Best (they lost here 1-0 to Gornik Zabrze in 1968) and Rangers. They visited in 1988 for a European match against GKS Katowice. Winning 4-2, familiar names included Ray Wilkins, Mark Walter, Ally McCoist and Terry Butcher.
Aside from acting as a second home to local sides playing in Europe, for decades this was the home of Polish football. Playing here for the first in 1956 against East Germany – a 2-0 loss watched by 90,000 – Poland would enjoy some of their finest moments here, among them a 2-0 win over the Netherlands in 1979 and a 1-0 victory recorded against Italy in 1985.
Into the now, and Ruch Chorzow have been playing here this season, however, Friday night saw away visitors admitted for the first time. Four-and-a-half thousand came from Warsaw, and their support was incredible. This, of course, was matched by the equally partisan home fans who used the opening minute to make one of the largest flag drops I’ve seen. Correction: the largest flag drop I’ve seen.
Great entertainment in the stands, and much fun had poking around the guts of this fine lady of a stadium. And, it goes without saying, what a joy it was returning to football following a two-month break.
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