Stal Rzeszow speedway, Rzeszów

I remember watching the lead up to England playing Poland in the world cup in 2006. Every news station outlet in London from the BBC to the News of the World was screaming biased editorials like “Extra police are will be on notice for the Polish fans” and “All is quiet at the moment but there is a real fear of the violence that is to be expected from the Polish fans” and “The Polish fans have a reputation as the most violent in Europe.”
Obviously they aren’t quotes, my memory is not that good. I remember it very clearly though because I’d never met a Polish person at the time and I was a little anxious about the anticipated atrocities. What a fizzer! In the event everyone was well behaved. Had I been Polish I would felt more than a little agrieved.

Stal Rzeszow is one of the proudest Polish football clubs, and also has a very successful speedway team. Rzeszow, the town where it is located, is arguably the most Polish city in Poland. I went along to a speedway event here really excited about experiencing the heartland of Polish football nationalism. (albeit in the off season)

Tickets for the speedway are 28 szloty full price, which is about 7 pound. A lot of money for the local wage earners.
It was the end of the season and the club was already facing relegation so there was a bit of a dead rubber atmosphere. Still there was a substantial crowd, of probably two thousand, in a well worn stadium of six thousand capacity. Apparantly most of these come as much for the love of the football team of the same name as for the speedway. They get a chance to sing and wave their flags in the off season.

Speedway, for the uninitiated, is a team sport. four riders race against each other at the same time - two from each team. The first placed rider gets three points with the last placed getting zero. Scores are tallied and one team wins the night.

Generally I’m no fan of motorsport but this was quick, thrilling, noisy, competative, and there was beer and sausages everywhere.

The fans - as far as I could tell - were really well behaved. Stal Rseszow lost and the other team cheered loudly, which seemed to be excepted. Fans were seperated though - like in English football. The Rzseszow fans cheered the other teams riders at the end of the night for great peformances, especially the champion Hans Anderson.

This was only a snapshot into Polish football culture, but I would certainly be prepared to go to one of their football games. Amazingly I saw not one but three teenage boys wearing white England team football shirts.

I really don’t think the Polish football fan is the monster the English media told me they were.

As a qualifying aside - On a trip to Gdansk two weeks ago our train overtook a “special football train”. These are trains just for football fans on the way to matches. It was easily recognisable as such. They were stopped just outside a station - every window and every door was crammed with singing sunburnt men waving cans and flags. They seemed to be happily singing together with no audience except some sheep and passing cars and us as we sped past.