My wife and me visited Prague for our 25th wedding anniversary, during November 2002 and before we left, I looked into the fixtures for that weekend. I remembered Bohemians from the late 70's and early 80's and found they were due to play a local derby the week we were there, away to, of all teams, Sparta! What an opportunity...
My wife and me visited Prague for our 25th wedding anniversary, during November 2002 and before we left, I looked into the fixtures for that weekend. I remembered Bohemians from the late 70's and early 80's and found they were due to play a local derby the week we were there, away to, of all teams, Sparta! What an opportunity.
The city is beautiful, and after spending the first couple of evenings walking the streets of Prague, we got onto tram 26 on Monday afternoon to the Sparta stadium. I had been in contact with Martin Slavik, one of your English editors who had given me advice on how to get there and he had been kind enough to agree to meet us at the away turnstiles for the match. Unfortunately, we missed each other, so we entered the ground, asking, with the aid of our Berlitz phrase book, for two tickets.
The match kicked-off at 4pm, and was live on television, so the crowd was disappointingly low, I think it was 4000, in the 22000 seater stadium. This created the almost surreal spectacle of a couple of hundred Bohemians fans monitored by an equal number of riot police. Shields, visors and batons, the complete works. I have to say that this did make my wife, who was not used to football stadiums, rather nervous but, apart from the police being called into action during the second half, to extinguish a couple of flares, and eject the fans who let them off, it was quite peaceful. It was a thoroughly enjoyable game, a bit disappointing that Bohemians lost 0-3 because they played very well, particularly during the last 15-20 minutes.
One word of warning to anyone thinking of watching a match at Sparta, on the night we went there, it was bitterly cold and so the need for half-time warmers was essential. A large sausage and a cup of coffee seemed a good idea. The sausage was lovely and so was the first two-thirds of the coffee. By the time I got to drink the last third from the cup, the second half had started, and without thinking, I tipped the last mouthful down my throat. What is all that gravel in the bottom of the cup all about? I was told it is Turkish coffee and the ground coffee is left in the cup, I don't know but I spent the next ten minutes spitting it out.
The next day, we caught a couple of trams out to Bohemians ground, we arrived about lunchtime when the warm-down session was just finishing, I had with me a club shirt of Arundel FC who I worked for at the time to give to Martin, as we had missed him the night before. We were invited in and spoke with someone who I am ashamed to say I can't remember his name, I thought he was the commercial manager but I may be wrong, but he generously took us to the players lounge, showed us the one remaining stuffed Kangaroo, no one knows what happened to the other one that was presented to the club apparently, and we had a good chat for twenty minutes or so over a cup of coffee, no gravel this time, and I left him with my Arundel FC club shirt, so if you see this message Martin, your shirt is in the club office. I cannot imagine this happening at an English club so thanks Bohemians for your hospitality on that day, particularly as it most have been a very difficult time for the club, with relegation looming that season, it would have been so easy to turn us away.
It is so sad to hear of the difficulties the club are in at the moment, I can only hope that a way out is found that will be favourable to all concerned, but it seems that this is a problem that many clubs are facing across Europe, with television being both the great benefactor for the fortunate few, big clubs and the grim reaper for the smaller clubs. So, I wish you well for the future and hope to visit your club again when we visit your city again in the, I hope, not too distant future.
Yours, Malcolm & Vera Few, from England.
