The reason I got to see this live was that
@ElfsborgAddick and his redoubtable band of football anoraks are here for a long-weekend of mind-boggling ground-hopping, so my Sparta supporting neighbour Mad Vincent and I naturally wanted to host them for the Sparta -Zlin game last night (and ensure they tasted the best beers either side of the game)
Looking at the table you might wonder what Sparta fans have to complain about, but having been put to the sword in recent years by the glorious upstarts Viktoria Plzen, they now have to contend with a resurgent Slavia too, backed by shadowy Chinese money. Since the winter break the Sparta wheels came off, hammered out of the Europa League by Rostov (and so missing out on a tie with ManU), and losing games they'd expect to coast through. So just in time for Elfsborg's visit, the owner, a mini-Abramovic called Kretinsky, already much despised in football and wider society, and obviously reading the Roland manual, made his third managerial change of the season. The new guy was previously with Dukla, who are nowadays a joke in every respect.
The game was live on TV, the opponents punching above their weight, it was boring tippy -tappy stuff, with little to cheer on a damp night. Then on 70 minutes, off went the detonators. Serious detonators, smoke bombs and a flare. In vain the big screen pointed out that "today isn't New Year" imploring them to stop, and eventually the players were taken off (fan goal achieved, given it was on TV). Then the banner was unfurled which you see in the pic, it says "the only solution, change the owner". And then, on 75 minutes, the Ultras all left the stadium.
This of course gave rise to animated discussion between us about the merits of such action at the Valley (and indeed at the Emirates, as one of Elfsborg's mates is a Gooner.) But it was interesting to see the reaction of the rest of the crowd; while they didn't boo the Ultras, they tried to get behind the team afterwards. Vincent read that as a generally disapproving attitude towards the Ultras' approach. Which goes to show how difficult it is to get consensus among fans in situations like this - and how impressive therefore the CARD and Belgium 20 collaborations of recent months have been.
Comments
I was a bit taken aback when we met up with them at the first pub, which I had chosen, and he complained that the beer there was easily the most expensive they had had that day. For the record it was £1.47 a half litre. And then they discovered what tankovy Pilsner Urquell is all about and they grudgingly admitted it might be worth the premium.
Elfsborg also appreciated, given how he refers to KM on here, that the name of the pub translates as "At the Squirrel's place"
£1.47 - I bet he was raging inside.
ok, I dreamed that up :-)
This is a band who probably should have stopped when they'd made up the titles of their songs. I saw them live once, they've improved enormously in that video.