If You're Feeling Sinister

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The mother tongue was not English, as the Ryanair plane taxied across the runway. We were on the commuter express from Mansfield of wherever and most passengers were just heading home for the weekend to see the folks.

Ryanair have a new plan to get you to check bags into the hold. A maximum of 90 carry-on pieces allowed and our stuff was placed in the hold free of charge. It was a bit irritating and transpired to cost us any chance of getting the bus to town in Rzeszow. The girl on the information desk helpfully pointed out that 10 minutes ago we had a bus, but now we had a 1 hour 50 wait. A taxi will be 59 Zloty. It was a very precise figure and true to her word, came in spot on. We later found out that it was a fixed price. The taxi driver had lived in Dublin for 5 years. He thought it was not a clean place, whatever that meant and he didn't like Guinness, so he after making his money he came home. The journey took about 20 minutes. As we passed a large architectural monument on entering the centre of town, our driver took great delight in describing this epic gift from the Russians as "the pussy". It was a bit difficult to comment on that one way or the other in the darkness, but it was certainly a talking point.

The non public transport option from the airport was against the usual judgement, but had the advantage of giving us an opportunity to try and get our tickets for the Resovia v Motor Lublin fixture in the morning. We checked in at the hotel, dumped the bags and set the Man in the Middle on his 1st walking challenge of the trip. The hotel was about 15 minutes walk East of the Old Town. The taxi driver had been somewhat perplexed why any visitor would not want to stay right on the Old Town Square - he had obviously got used to spending too much cash during his time in Ireland.

The Resovia ground was 15 minutes the other side. We had 40 minutes and with the helpful intervention of the night watchman (who was just bedding down for a nap in his office in the Main Stand), we made the office of the man with tickets with 5 minutes to spare. Division 4 regional football might be many things, but lacking in ticket technology it is not. Passport ID recorded, we were lined up for a digital mug shot. 15 Zloty and 2 minutes later, we were official Resovia and provided with our gateway to the Motor Lublin match. Well the gateway was a scrappy piece of paper with our names recorded and a bar code that would reveal all later. A beer was in order to celebrate.

The Resovia bar was a sea of red & white stripes. It was all very Crvena Zvezda without the common bond of the European Cup winning brothers bond. There were 2 framed shirts in pride of place on the wall - neither featuring a Belgrade reference. Visit Malta proclaimed one! An ironic forecast of the next groundhopping adventure. The boys from Bramall Lane had clearly been for an adventure before us. It remains to be seen whether Resovia keep the Sheffield United connection on the wall, if Ched is allowed back into the fold! We settled down with our 5 Zloty pints of Tyskie to watch a bit of Georgia v Poland on TV. At 5 Zloty, we concluded we could get to like this place. The loyal were enjoying a few pints after work on Friday, except the guy who took more interest in the fruit machine and merely proceeded to high five all others when Poland scored another goal. He included us in his celebration circuit.

Resovia are the oldest club in Poland, if you can laterally think round the removal of the Lviv clubs (formerly of the Polish League) into the Soviet system after World War 2. There is some debate from Cracovia about this claim, but the informed will assure you that 1905 in the badge refers to football and the Krakow club only jumped on that bandwagon in 1906. As with many Austrian and German sporting clubs, they can usually trace their foundation to a game of tiddlywinks or a bit of a gymnastic workout before they got their boots on to play the beautiful game! Resovia have a bit more of a less glorious recent past and hit the headlines in 2010, as the rest of Europe put their focus on the hosts of UEFA 2012. A sinister banner unveiled at the 2010 Rzeszow derby caused some concern that not all members of the community would be welcome to visit during the tournament. However, the welcome at the clubhouse could not have been further away from the 2010 headlines and was repeated later that evening in town. It was also the following day at the match.

We headed into town, fully expecting to pay substantially more than the 5 Zloty for our next drinks. We surveyed the square in the Old Town and settled for the Corner Bar. We were interupted as we headed across with an invite to the strip club, which takes a prominent place in the square. The glamorous young ladies spin patrol around with their red umbrellas, encouraging any passer by to part with their cash in that direction. We poliely declined and continued to the Corner Bar.

We ordered. Bonus. It was still 5 Zloty. We could definitely like it here. The only surprise was the total lack of other visitors, which makes you think that a few lads weekends away need to get their research act together. A guy walked in, ordered and sat down near us. We meet again, he suggested. It was only when he took his hat off, that we noted he had been playing pool in the Resovia bar. An enjoyable couple of hours followed apart from the local self-styled big hitter drinking himself senseless on the next table and constantly querying, what is your business here? I am sure there was a large cheer all round town, when he departed back to his glamorous lifestyle in Dubai.

We were starving by this point, although most of the dining options seemed to start and finish with the word kebab. Our new friend directed us to the town's top quality establishment - his opinion and seemingly that of many others given the healthy queue. The product was to our liking, as we weaved our way homeward.

The Resovia game was scheduled to kick off at 11 am, so a fairly early night was called for. Polish beer certainly takes it's toll, regardless of the price, so it was definitely a good idea. It was all quiet in the morning, as we wandered towards the Stadion Miejski down the river. The stadium of the most successful branch of Resovia - volleyball - was all quiet before their afternoon start. The visit of Motor Lublin was deemed too high a risk for the game to proceed at Resovia's own ground, so it was all down to their rivals, Stal's, where suitable fences and segregation was in place. The riot police were all lined up, but under-employed. The focus seemed to be on keeping Resovia in, as not one voice from Lublin had arrived. The mounted section hovered on the other side of the road. After significant difficulty, the readers of the turnstiles gave the green light to our tickets. Passport at the ready was an unnecessary preparation. It wasn't until the obligatory search had finished, that I noted that the scrappy piece of ticket was displaying the photographs of all those entering on screens! A completely disproportionate step for the regional Polish Division 4, but a logical step for UEFA and FIFA if they were ever serious about stamping out ticket touting.

11 am came and went. There were no signs of kick off or indeed anybody from Lublin. The teams were busy warming up, so they were both here. The 12,000 capacity wasn't being tested and a set of additional low level floodlights obscuring the view gave away the more popular use - speedway. We eventually got underway about 11.15 am without any away presence. The official reason given was given as follows

mecz pierwotnie zaplanowany na 11:00 rozpoczął się z 15-minutowym opóźnieniem z powodów organizacyjnych

which suggests that it was delayed 15 minutes for organisational reasons.

The 2 teams played some energetic low quality stuff and the referee helpfully intervened with a dubious penalty to make sure a 0-0 wasn't likely. The only surprise came about 20 minutes from the end, when 2 coaches of Motor Lublin arrived to give the riot police something to do. Had they been held out of town? Had they just got the kick off time wrong? Who knows and by the time they had negotiated their way thorugh the executive trunstile and security, the majority got to see about 5 minutes of football. There was no time to put the banners up, let alone encourage an equaliser.

The late kick off put us behind schedule, so there was no time to study the post match rivalries that might develop between the two sets of fans. We had a bus to catch to Mielec - Marcel awaited with the transport.


Appendix

Saturday 15th November

Stadion Miejski, Rzeszow

Kick Off 11:15 am

Attendance: 600



Resovia 1 - 0 Motor Lublin

Goal: Makowski (Penalty) - 6 Minutes

Resovia Rzeszow: Pietryka, Wilka, Makowski, Tabaka, Sadecki, Adamski, Greszkiewicz (Sedan 46), Moldoch (Skuba 69), Rop, Konefal, Dziedzic (Zabkiewicz 90)

Motor Lublin: Liepic, Kazubski, Komor, Karwan, Falisicwiez (Kosiarczyk 35), Stachyra, Krol, Mroczcek (Jabowski 74), Piekarski, Majewski, Wilski (Czulowski 57)

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Photos

Resovia v Motor Lublin
Makowski buries the penalty after 6 mins

Rzeszow
Assecco Rzeszow Volleyball Stadium in the background