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Published: December 10th 2013
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Daylight in Rijeka revealed streets of Venetian architecture set back behind the waterfront. The Church of St Vito was tucked behind that in the small Old Town. The Jadralinja ferry building stood majestically over the port area and the local version of the Tuxedo Princess nightclub floated in the harbour. A few cranes perched on the docks, but whether they were in a permanent state of inactivity was open to debate. We had no time to explore further. The Autotrans chariot was due out for Zagreb at 7.45 am. We retreated back to the Bus Station to secure our seats.
The bus pulled away bang on time and proceeded on a slightly different route out of town. The driver was clearly under training. He came to a grinding halt, just before he almost pulled on to the southbound motorway slip road heading to Zadar and Split. This would have been handy had the fixtures worked in our favour, but we needed to be back in Zagreb for a lunch time kick off. The snow duly appeared again after the first big tunnel, but there were no delays and we were back in Zagreb Bus Station at 10.15 am.
We
left our bags in the care of the left luggage at the Bus Station, which transpired to be a very profitable few hours for them. It is probably best to study their rather misleading price board in advance of your decision to lodge a bag with them. NK Zagreb kicked off at 1.30 pm, but before that we had a ticketing mission on the other side of town. We caught Tram 5 to the Maksimir in search of Derby tickets.
The Dinamo Zagreb website is actually a rarity in that it does publish ticket information. However, it is best described as fluid information that changes daily. The original information merely indicated that an acceptable form of photo ID was required, but by Friday the decision had been taken that only Club Members were deemed acceptable in the West or Main Stand. There was no one around when we approached the main Ticket Office, save for a few stewards. They had erected barriers in anticipation of some form of demand, but they were not necessary. We checked with the nearest steward that we were in the right place, as the ticket office is covered in the livery of Lokomotiva Zagreb
(who also share the stadium for their home fixtures). The only tickets on offer were for the North Stand and the East Stand. The Bad Blue Boys usually would occupy the North, so we opted for the East down the side of the pitch. We handed over our passports and the required 50 Kuna (£5.65) each and duly received our tickets with our names inscribed on them. It was obviously a hit and miss process, as one ticket had the full name including the middle name lifted straight from the passport document whilst the other only had one Christian name and the surname. An attempt to walk round to the training pitches behind the South Stand was blocked by a security guard.
We walked back along Maksimir Ave towards the city centre, as a familiarisation exercise. The memories of my last visit are vague, beyond the Cathedral and the “Man on the Horse” statue who is a regular feature of all big European cities. The Cathedral had scaffolding on one spire, but other than that the bright blue winter skies presented good photo opportunities. There was little time to continue on this theme and we moved on towards NK
Zagreb.
The football graffiti artists have been hard at work in the visit of Stadion Kranjceviceva. NK Zagreb were not behind the majority, as most featured Dinamo and the rest was basketball inspired by KK Cibona. However, we were introduced to the local club’s White Angels ……… Loud, Proud & Devoted. The mural depicted a few said Angels with Dirty Faces ………… a “few” being the operative word, as it transpired at the match later. The pre-match security obligingly let us in to do some photos, before we retreated back outside to take the graffiti. The ticket office was doing as brisk a business as that at Dinamo i.e. none. The only price was 20 Kuna (£2.25). We invested and came away with Tickets 0001 and 0002. The ultimate match souvenir.
The restaurant inside was doing brisk business. The business seemed beyond the solitary waiter, who was more intent on removing bread crumbs from the tablecloths and folding napkins, than on serving his growing custom. We eventually succeeded in placing an order for some more excellent sausages and finished the meal in time for kick off.
The intervening time period had not seen a significant increase in
business at the turnstiles. A mere 300 was the listed crowd. The only section of the ground open was the stand and the terraces on the opposite remained occupied by just a couple of stewards. There was no sign of any visible visiting fans. The visitors were challenging at the top of the Division 2 table and looked in a commanding mood for most of the 1
st half. However, they seemed strangely reluctant to actually hurt NK Zagreb whilst they were on top and ultimately paid the price.
The crowd was fairly silent in the initial period of the match. There was no immediate sign of the Loud, Proud & Devoted. There were animated protests to the officials from the NK Zagreb bench, but they transpired to be from what we discovered was the new owner rather than the coach. The owner loitered at the left edge of the dugout and far from looking like the affluent owner of a football club, looked more akin to a Sunday League coach who had been out for a few on Saturday night. The White Angels finally woke up, waved a few flags and sung songs of encouragement for their team. They
NK Zagreb
The original club badge numbered just a few, but a couple more made it for the 2
nd half. The solitary girl in the group acted as official photographer, but clearly had to go back to work at half time. She perhaps knew that her boyfriend would lead the charge to take off his shirt in a more enthusiastic part of their repertoire and wisely disappeared. The group posed for a few staged managed photos, but were good natured enough not to bother warning off the random foreigners using the cameras aka their Bosnian equivalents a few weeks back.
As with most football fans, a degree of curiosity surfaced at the end of the game and they came for a chat just to evaluate who had been recording their loyalty to the cause. The words were obviously lost in somewhere in translation, as Leeds United drew a lot of blank looks. We’ll put it down to the accent or perhaps it needed to “D” prefix to properly identify the club. The game finished 1 – 0 to NK Zagreb for the record, after a suspect visiting keeper dived over a speculative shot from distance.
We hurried back to the Bus Station for our
4.30 pm departure travel plans to Zadar.
Appendix 1 NK Zagreb 1 NK Pomorac 0 Stadium: Stadion Kranjceviceva, Zagreb
Croatia 2 HNLiga Friday 29 November 2013 1330 Hrs Scorers: V Stepcic 61 (NK Zagreb)
Attendance: 300
Referee: I Balic
NK Zagreb: B Matic, F Krovinovic, E Sehic, J Herceg, D Stiglec, B Musa , D Colinger, V Stepcic, G Boban, A Mitrovi, J Jrendic
NK Pomorac Kostrena: M Damic, D Polic, S Muminovic, S Sluga, V Turkalj, N Prelcec, I Bijelic, N Cuturilo, M Grujevic, D Zivulic, I Prijic
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