Date: 12 April 2024 / League: Polish sixth tier
Experience
It was back to Olsztyn for me last Friday, a city that’s fast becoming one of my favourites in Poland. As a creature of habit (usually bad ones), I arrived at noon and didn’t waste any time – within minutes I was in the nearest curry house before heading forth to the Old Town to conduct a headcount of pubs.
Tempting as it was to dedicate the rest of the afternoon to boozy research, common sense kicked in and I used down time before the evening’s match to check out the home of the city’s other side, Warmia. As it turns out, this was one of my finer decisions.
Founded by railways workers in 1945, the club played their inaugural match on July 15th that very same year. The date was by no means incidental. Falling on the 535th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald – one of the most epic confrontations in medieval history – this landmark event had long been celebrated by Poles as one of the defining moments in their history.
With Olsztyn only reabsorbed back into Poland following the post-war remapping of Europe’s borders, that the club were founded on such an important anniversary felt a symbolic act marking the region’s Polonization.
It would, however, take a few more years to build the stadium they now call home. Constructed between 1955 and 1956, it regularly pulled in crowds in excess of 10,000 – pretty good for a town whose population numbered only 60,000 at the time. Back in these times, this was considered the biggest club in the town.
Now, Warmia are largely forgotten, their crown as the local top dogs long taken by Stomil Olsztyn. Playing in the district leagues, from my calculation the side now turn out in the equivalent of the sixth tier. That they turn out at all may come as a surprise when you see the state of their ground: there are ruins, and then there is Warmia.
Largely overgrown and vandalised, it’s nonetheless a beautiful place to explore: start by walking around the old ticket booths and turnstiles, before hitting up a ground featuring a wrecked PA cabin and curling banks of terracing long eaten by nature.
Alas, for lovers of football fossils, I have bad news. If press reports are to be believed, spatial plans for the area have already been approved and the entire plot is set to be transformed into a football academy. Quite when these plans will be executed remains to be seen, but the message seems to be clear: get here while you can!
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