Be rude not too.

Recently (well actually three months ago - I'm a slow writer) I was fortunate to make a trip to the Czech capital, Prague.  It was a birthday trip with the agenda predominantly being filled with local beer and, well, more local beer.  But going with similarly minded footy fans meant that taking in a couple of games was a must.

So, bring on Slavia Prague and, to follow, Bohemians. 

Of course as they say, when in Rome... (OK, I know I wasn't in Italy, but you get the drift) then you go with the locals.  So, tram boarded and aimlessly following the crowd not really knowing where we were heading or indeed whether we would get a ticket even. Out in the suburbs the tram stopped and a friendly sort in red and white attire pointed and said something in a language we didn't understand.  We assumed that he meant that the ground was somewhere over there, so we headed off on foot following the crowd and upon seeing a big queue forming we worked out that it was the ticket office and discreetly added ourselves to the line and in broken Czech/English mix we bought our tickets at the huge outlay of £5 each...bargain!

Slavia's ground is a newish 20,000 Seater bowl, all neat and tidy with good access in the concourse areas,  littered with the usual food and beverage counters. The difference here of course is the beer is Pils and the pies have been replaced with larger spicy sausages and mustard.

Going to English games, you get used to the protocol. No smoking or drinking in the ground, thou shalt sit or be evicted etc. 

So in the usual English fashion we sunk what we thought was a final drink in the concourse before going to our seats.  Needn't have worried though, on cue as the thirst was setting in a couple of young ladies very politely came round offering beers at leisure at the equivalent of 80p a shot. Well, it would have been rude not too - we wouldn't want to offend, would we!

Pointless though was the all Seater stadium. Of all the fans that we could see, they stood or bounced throughout the game. And the stewards? Well they just leant against the stairwells, having a sneaky fag, checking their phones or just simply watching the game - quality.

So for £5, we plonked ourselves down where we wanted to, had 'a few' beers,  could have smoked if we were smokers and stood all the way through the game and not a H&S spoiler in sight.  Now, that takes you back.

The game itself was functional and Slavia ended up winning 2-1. So emotions were, well, high and infectious with us all being Slavia Ultras for the night, which leads me on to the support and the end of game ritual.

Firstly the support. Orchestrated and full vocals.  By tradition they have a guy standing on a small plinth, his back to the game, with a load hailer kicking off the chants. The songs/chants were constant throughout the game apart from probably 5 minutes. But the weird thing is that they chanted irrelevant of what was happening in the game though. No oohs or aarrghs,  just constant orchestrated singing. Odd.

Anyway various banners got erected at different times,  not knowing why or what they meant. Towards the end of the game a huge banner was draped over most of the crowd, organised of course,  not like them across South West London. No one had sight of what was happening on the pitch but as it transpired no one was bothered as it allowed them to organise their flares. And boy they loved their flares.

At the end of the game we were just about to leg it to beat the crowd when a local, who we had been talking to, advised that we should stay.  So we did as we were told. We did wonder whether it was to avoid trouble but soon found out why, their end of game ritual. 

All the players came over to the crowd and lined up behind the goal and knelt down. In unison the crowd sat down.  Mr load hailer man started them off and they all sang some chants and it all kicked off again. You couldn't help get in the zone with them and we were bouncing along with the locals,  admittedly with our English versions of their songs.  Basically the fans were thanking the team and the team were thanking the fans.  More flares went off and it was like they had won a cup tie.  But they hadn't, it was just a normal league game and they do this win, lose or draw.

Bear this in mind when you see certain players running down the tunnel ( er hum...BAE! Etc)

Here's the link to the end of game bit - and my apologies for my drunken City friend who put his own angle on their song.

Slavia You Tube Link

When I get time,  I'll do a round up of the Bohemians visit,   which was quite a contrast to this.