Sparta v Slavia

On Sunday, October 23rd, I attended a remarkable event. A Czech football (err… soccer) game. You may read that, and think to yourself, ‘Come on, Mike. How different can a sporting event in Central Europe really be from… I don’t know… a Cleveland Browns game?’ Well friends, the Dog Pound may be a fierce group of large drunken sports fanatics, but I don’t remember hearing about anyone in their midst staring death in the face. You see, Czech football is not for the weak of heart. It’s a game for warriors, for strategists, and for police clad in riot gear. Hundreds of them.

The game began like any other. Fans waved expressive signs in the air, rhythmic chants were heard throughout the stadium, and the players entered the arena to the sound of applause. And then the war began. The colorful signs disappeared from the fans o so many fans, only to be replaced with hand-held flares and fireworks… which were incidentally pointed at other people in the stadium. At random moments throughout the game, explosions and screams were heard, as fans dove out of the way of the flaming mortars bouncing between the seats. Rest assured, these occurrences were confined to the stands behind each goal, rather than the sides of the stadium, where I was seated.

You might also be surprised by the new and innovative ways that Czech football fans use their chairs at such events. Like in any given American stadium, the seats are firmly secured to the cement steps by iron bars and bolts. But Czechs are not so easily dissuaded by these petty implements. Within the first 30 minutes of the game, dozens, dare I say, hundreds of these chairs had been fully ripped from their bases and thrown onto the field. Soon thereafter, a group of chairs in one section became the site of a decent-sized bonfire. Apparently, some fans were feeling chilly? Within seconds, this fire had grown to engulf at least 10 or 15 seats, and the igniters of said fair had fled to safe distance with the rest of the people in the area.

“So where were the authorities?” you may ask. Well, friends, 150 of Prague’s finest were in attendance that evening, all clad in full riot gear. Over the course of the game, the police would intermittently charge into the stands, subdue any law-breakers, and then return to their posts on the warning track. Apparently, flares being thrown at them from the crowd weren’t enough to elicit a response, because usually such things were simply extinguished and disregarded. In regards to the fire; a pair of firemen quickly entered the stadium with a hose, put out the fire, and left. No blood, no foul apparently.

By the second half, there had been so many fireworks, and flares and bonfires, that smoke prohibited most spectators from seeing the ball. But rest assured, the game went on. Seriously. Through out all of this, there was no hesitation from the players on the field; the game continued as normal.

At the end of the game, all of my friends and I left unscathed. What a great night.