Czech football jaunt

Flares, Fires and Fighting!

	In England, this would make the front pages, and every fan that has been clocked would be booted out of football for life.

The stands are on fire, the sky is engulfed with blood-red smoke, and thousands of supporters are ripping out seats and lobbing them at stewards. It’s like the scene of a Columbian riot. But I’m not in South America. Or Mexico. Or even Glasgow. I’m in Prague – the leafy, tourist-packed capital of the Czech Republic – and, believe it or not, this anarchy is the norm. As missiles whizz dangerously overhead, there’s no great fear, or surprise, or confusion; everyone is laughing and joking like they’re watching a run-of-the-mill Christmas pantomime – a pantomime at which everyone is drunk and stoned, and focused not on the people on the pitch, but on the ones standing round it. It’s loud, it’s raucous, it’s aggressive – and today, I’m slap bang in the middle of it.

I’m watching the game between the world-renowned Sparta Prague, and the newly- promoted Bohemians 1905 – a rival Prague team whose standard of football is akin to a Fray Bentos-laden pub side from North Yorkshire. As I arrive at the ground – a huge, concrete slab of Communist oppression – the Sparta fans are their usual excitable selves, an almighty sea of red and white uniformed skinheads, all leaping up and down on the makeshift terraces with their size 10 army boots. Not especially keen on getting my expat face rearranged by an over-zealous neo-Nazi, I take my place in the Bohemians end. The Bohemians fans, on the surface, are a world away from the thuggish machismo of their opponents, a group of happy-go-lucky chaps who go to games to get stoned and chant a load of nonsense to the sound of a large drum.
Today though the atmosphere is different. Everyone hates Sparta and the Bohemian fans are keen to goad them at the earliest opportunity. As the Bohemians end fills out with green and white shirted supporters clutching plastic glasses of frothy Czech beer and their obligatory spliffs, the game gets underway. ‘Bo-Hemians…Bo-Hemians…’ chants the crowd as Sparta initially knock the ball about with their trademark assuredness. Disappointingly though, five minutes later, the game has shifted into its typical Czech football pattern – lots of sideways passing and zero goal threat. Upsetting for the purist perhaps, but excitingly this means the fans can concentrate on their terrace fun without letting the inconvenience of football get in the way. And thus the chanting picks up.
Half-time comes and goes without incident, but about 74 or so minutes in, the boredom finally causes someone to cave, and a beer is chucked at a loitering steward. Within a minute, a dozen other half-drunk beers have been hurled. Laughter fills the stands and the real game has begun. Seconds later, someone lights the first flare. The firemen – who have all the cartoonish gravitas of Fireman Sam – amble over and put it out with a hose. Then another goes off. Then another. Then another. Within minutes, about 30 flares are held aloft and the firemen don’t know what to do. Spraying the crowd with water only aggravates the fans, and a handful instantly start to rip the seats up and frisbee them at stewards, firemen, police or anyone else in authority. At one point a glass bottle whizzes through the air and just misses a steward’s head. In the Sparta end, it’s all kicking off too, a battalion of policemen charging through the stands to break up some distant ruck.
Amid all the smoke and excitement, Sparta score a goal. But not a single Bohemians fan sees it or cares. Now, they’re focused on a personal match. Fans vs authority. Flares, seats, bottles – anything fans can get their hands on are hurled over the fence towards the bemused officers, and the firemen respond with yet more water. As the fans clamber up the fence and gesture for them to come at them, a feint final whistle goes. Making my way towards the exit tunnel, two flares suddenly explode by my feet. I jump out the way and – grappling with a hundred other fans – leg it Usain Bolt-style up the stands to escape them and the huge water jets being fired in our direction. I don’t manage it though, and soaking wet, I finally exit the depleted battle ground, along with the equally sodden – yet grinning Bohemians fans.

I leave shocked yet strangely exhilarated by the events I’ve just seen. In England, this would make the front pages, and every fan that has been clocked would be booted out of football for life. But not here. It’s all part and parcel of the pantomime, and next week, it’ll all kick off – albeit comically – all over again.