Date: 30 September 2023 / League: Polish second tier
Final Score: 2-1 / Attendance: 6,281
Experience
Does the name Rzeszow sound familiar? Well, it should do. Becoming the principal gateway for Western aid destined for Ukraine, last year saw it regularly installed as an international front page fixture.
Camera crews, correspondents, fixers, soldiers, global leaders (Joe Biden’s stopped in for pizza!) and, even, Ben Stiller, all rolled through it in 2022, and in the process helped bring the city to the attention of the world.
But looking beyond the shadow cast by the war, the city is a star in its very own right. It’s a beauty, and one not short of little quirks – visit, for instance, the bizarre Museum of Cartoons and Bedtime Stories, view a staggering Commie era monument that many liken to a giant, concrete vulva, or track down the ancestral home of Natalie Portman’s family.
And when you’re done with that, glug some local beers inside Stara Drukarnia, an atmospheric former printing house that’s now been transformed into a den of craft beer. Or, follow my lead, and take a ringside seat overlooking the square to enjoy the offerings of the Bristol – a wonderful hotel with folk-chic aesthetic and a brewpub onsite.
That’s where I found myself kicking-off my day in earnest. Having started off on the right foot after discovering a half-decent curry house on the doorstep of the train station, it was to the Bristol that I headed for my traditional pre-match drinks. And a good choice that was, for it was right outside that Resovia’s fans were meeting before embarking on their march to the ground.
Tagging along (cheers to their front-of-group that allowed me to join!), I latched onto their escort to the stadium mindful that last season this same kind of procession had been ambushed by Stal, their derby rivals. No such japes this time around though, instead it proved a standard stop-start affair livened only by the occasional smoke bomb and song. Reaching the stadium, however, it wasn’t just darkness that was falling – by this stage the steady autumn drizzle had turned into a downpour putting more than just me in a mood most foul.
Security were also in a heightened state of irritation, and despite arriving early Resovia’s fans were kept locked outside before being subjected to rigorous searches. Allowed in one-by-one, the snail’s pace of progress led to mounting frustration – well, with Polish stewards guided by a philosophy of ‘when in doubt, use your tear gas’, it wasn’t long before the air was thick with stinging clouds of Predator. Spiralling further, the moments before kick-off saw a brief tussle at the gates as a result of more heavy-handed stewarding.
So, to this atmosphere of thinly-veiled aggression and hostility the game kicked-off with the home side, Stal, presenting two shows in the first half, the last of which saw the entire length of the main stand illuminated red by flare-wielding ultras. With this towering main tribune disappearing under a blanket of smoke and noise, it felt like the fog of war had settled over the ground – or, at least, this section of it.
Occupying the shallow slither of open seating running own the other side, Resovia had been handed 3,000 tickets for their biggest game of the season, yet had only managed to shift a total of 1,666.
“Their fan scene is in a bit of a crisis,” a hooli photographer told me. “They had a pretty well-respected ultra movement a few years back, but now the older generation have disappeared and been replaced with young kids – good for the future, sure, but not for the present.”
Looking at the away section, his words rang true. Dominating the ranks were teen-aged lads, all masked up but hardly competition for the veteran Frankenstein lunatics cracking their knuckles in the home stand.
Nor would I question their passion. Providing strong backing, Resovia’s support was rewarded with an equalizer in the early stages of the second half – flying limbs, celebrations, etc. Invigorated, this was the cue for their own flag drop and show: Bengalo flares first, then a series of smoke cannisters to drown their sector in mist.
Emboldened both on the pitch and in the stands, I would have put money on Resovia coming out on top. Poised on a knife-edge, you just knew that another goal would come in this game. A chance here, a chance there. But just as it looked destined for a draw, it was Stal who popped up to score a winner in the dying minutes – delirium in the home stand, dejection in the away.
A good derby all in all, and an interesting stadium to boot – built as a motocross venue, it’s a strange venue all right, with one main stand looming over all else. If comparisons are to be made, a little like Chelsea’s East Stand once dominated Stamford Bridge in the 80s.
Circled by a slick moto-thingy track – its surface rendered absolutely treacherous by the rain – the rest of the ground feels strangely vapid and incomplete with perhaps the only other notable feature being a VIP building so far removed from the pitch that you need NASA technology to see the bloody ball. But all that, that’s beside the point – too many of the modern Polish stadiums look just like the other. This place, on the other hand (and, incidentally, I should mention that Resovia are now also playing their home games here temporarily), feels totally unique.
And so too is Rzeszow. A great city is this. Even without football, it’s well worth the visit – but when you add a match to the mix it becomes even more so. If you’re looking for something a little less obvious in Poland, then all I can say is pencil in Rzeszow and specifically the derby. It’s for this fixture that the city truly stirs.
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