So, I wanted to go to the football: not very much, but enough to satisfy curiosity. I could quite as happily have stayed at home, but a friend said he was going with his son. I even convinced another mate to come along. It seemed like a good idea at the time, big lads day out and all that, and once committed I really couldn't wimp out. After all, this was at last the chance to witness the big team of which I have heard so much on home turf in this beautiful Moravian town of Olomouc; the enigmatically named Sigma.
With roots that stretch back to 1919, SK Sigma Olomouc has had a chequered history. Best known for beating the Turkish team Fenerbahçe 7-1 back in the 1991/2 season, their other accolades are less distinguished – being fined for racist chanting in 1999 and again for naughty corruption in 2011 being fined 4 million koruna (that’s 119,952 in current pounds, shillings and pence)! As of writing, they are currently 12th in the Gambrinus Liga over which Sparta Praha maintains its lofty dominance.
The 12,500 capacity Andrův stadion has at times been the location of Czech internationals, but is modest in size and seating – on this occasion, with perhaps as much as 2/3–3/4 of the seats unoccupied, ticket sales were proudly displayed in the second half as 3582. The southern end was recently reconstructed, housing VIP suites, businesses, a hotel and a football academy with dormitories for talented regional boys who aspire to great and glorious things. The ground has the dubious pleasure of being one of the few modern buildings to grace the ancient city’s skyline with its silhouette of alien ovoid floodlights.
In the grand scheme of things, Easter Sunday's Sigma Olomouc vs FK Příbram probably won’t amount to a whole heap of beans, either in terms of tabloid column inches or TV exposure. About the only thing of interest about either team was that Příbram currently use the Kuwaiti Abdulaziz Ahmad Al Masha'an Al Enezi, or Aziz as he is identified on his shirt, and the Armenian Levon Hayrapetyan, who is also the son of the Olympic champion hockey player Sos Hayrapetyan. Ooooh!
The usual pre-match excitement infected the crowd queuing to ascend the stairs to football heaven, only to be met by a rather disappointing 0–0 draw. Not only were there no goals, but both teams also played rather badly, missing simple opportunities at either end, and not really being able to get enough steam up to force errors or complete set pieces. At best, there was a lot of scrabbling about in the box, but of the two sides Sigma played the worst. I've seen better play in Hyde Park, with jumpers for goalposts.
The home crowd’s performance matched the late spring weather, starting off fine, but descending into misery under the thundery downpour in the second half. Apart from the Ultras, the local shirtless moronic chanting diehards, the rest could quite easily have watched from the slippered comfort of their living rooms, so little noise did they make and such little support did they give I had to turn around every now and again just to make sure they hadn't all slinked off home. As for FK Příbram’s away support, it consisted of four blokes holding a banner labelled Fanatic Forties, whatever that means. The thoroughly drunk bloke two seats away from us whipped out his hip flask and kindly offered slivovice, the local plum brandy, a very friendly gesture to obviously sarcastic English-speaking types. I hope the herpes clears up soon.
The one good feature of the whole event was that beer is available inside the ground. As my friend Mirek dryly commented, if there was no beer then nobody would turn up!
Quite frankly, if this was the best Czech football has to offer, then I'll have to stick to ice hockey, or maybe even take up guerrilla knitting – at least there’d be something to show for an hour and a half’s woolly attention.
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