Once More Unto the Tribunes, Dear Friends.

A return to the Legia stadium for your correspondent today for Legia vs. Wisła Kraków. Having checked the internet message boards, it seems there is some debate about whether to do any doping (a strange word which doesn’t really translate into English, but which reflects the full range of mass chanting and wavey hand effects that I talked about in my last football post after the Widzew game).

After all the controversy following the Lech/Legia rioting in the cup final and the moves by Donald Tusk to crack down on hooliganism (games in empty stadiums, mass arrests of those suspected in involvement with the rioting and a ban on away trips for supporters) I feel that now, more than ever, is the time to get to a Polish football game if you want to see a level of support that hasn’t been muted by rising ticket prices, effective policing and the prawn zapikanka brigade. 

Of course the Polish authorities have little choice but to crack down hard: In a year’s time spectators from more than 200 countries will be in town to watch Euro 2012 and avoiding a repeat of violence seen in previous championships will  be vital to the tounament's success. But my gut instinct says that the authorities should be much more worried about the impact on transport and accommodation infrastructure if hundreds of thousands visit Poland without match tickets just for the craic. The weather will be warm, the prices considerably cheaper than in the Euro-zone and the travel time is low. Surely more than a million extra people will pass through. You were warned here first!

Putting that aside, the weather will be warm today, the atmosphere should be intriguing given all that’s happened. One commentator on Legia’s fanpage has written, “Dziś może być doping... tylko troche inny” (today maybe there’ll be doping, but a bit different)and as always your faithful PzU newshound will be on hand to record events.

 
Remember, Pozdrowienia z Ursynowa, the only place you can find enough photographs of old people to fill a pervert’s back catalogue twice over. 

Talking of which, I loved the animation in the face of the guy on the right. He looked like he should have been sipping wine on an Italian terrace and decrying Berlusconi's latest antics, not on the 503 bus bouncing up and down on that particularly badly tarmaced section of Belwederska Street.