Don’t mock the Plock
It’s not easy being a football fan sometimes. When you’re one of the better teams, you get the joy of winning most weeks, but even the best sides come unstuck from time-to-time, and suddenly you’re the ones on the other end of a heavy defeat.
Well, in Poland, the remedy is simple: don’t drink your woes away… just use your fists instead!
This past weekend, Polish First League (really their 2nd-tier division) high-fliers Flota Swinoujscie welcomed struggling Wisla Plock to town for a league fixture. As expected, Flota won the match comfortably, 4-1, and while the home crowd celebrated the beatdown, the small cadre of disgruntled Plock fans decided to vent their frustrations by hopping the fences and assaulting the Flota supporters. Makes sense, right?
Check the videos below: the first is mostly match highlights (flip to the last 35 seconds or so to see the trouble brew and unfold in full), whereas the second is the news report. All us UFers find it incredible that the visiting fans could have beat down the home fans like that!
Perhaps for Flock’s next match, the fans should wear the kits and the players should take a rest in the stands. It might help them greatly.
5 goals, several punches, 27 arrested, and one hilarious story.
Written by Darkvader on September 30th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Lingering Bursitis and Poland and fan violence and hooliganism.
The Catalan derby this weekend between Barcelona and Espanyol was a thriller. Barca pulled off the comeback win against a 10-man Espanyol after an 85th minute equalizer from Thierry Henry and then Leo Messi converted a dubious penalty kick (weren’t they all this last weekend?) in the 103rd minute. (By the way, take a look at the shot graphic on that link, Barca outshot them 33 to 5.)
Yeah, that’s right, the 103rd minute. Not a typo. Which gets me to the reason for the old Tank Wars graphic up top.
Seems during the match the visiting Blaugrana fans decided to turn the match into their own personal old-school video game as they tossed flares on to the home fans. Naturally, this did not go over well and ended up in the match being stopped for 8 minutes in the second half.
After the jump, see the video of the flare toss. The first is better than the second, and the end of the video has a nice chant with the word “Puta” involved, although my Spanish is about as good as Newcastle United’s football team so I could be wrong.
Needless to say, the emotions were running high after the controversial match concluded after the witching hour. My parents used to tell me, nothing good comes from actions at that time of the night. I would submit to you that they were wrong because I get to read about these sorts of things from The Guardian Blog:
Way after midnight under the hulking concrete stands of the LluĂs Companys stadium Barcelona’s Thierry Henry shrugged, washing his hands conveniently clean, and Leo Messi beamed. Espanyol’s broken players mostly bit their tongues and walked on by silently simmering, as the coaches Pep Guardiola and TintĂn Márquez tried to impose peace. But few were having it.
Samuel Eto’o returned to the scene of the crime, glorying in it. The Espanyol president Daniel Sánchez Llibre spontaneously combusted. A kerfuffle broke out and suddenly Gerard PiquĂ© was squaring up to an Espanyol director. “I don’t want to call it a robbery because they’ll charge me for it,” snapped Sánchez Llibre, forgetting how much he liked La Liga when Espanyol were top. “This league is completely prostituted.”
Puta, indeed.
Update: The Offside has another video of the flare throwing.
Written by Darkvader on September 29th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Barcelona and Puta and The Fan's Attic and Video and espanyol and fan violence.
