By a quarter to eight on 31 May, about 20 football fans stood around the ticket booth at Vršovice’s Ďolíček stadium, puffing cigarettes and quaffing tall cans as they awaited a bus bound way out east. Bohemians 1905 would face off against FK Třinec, the home team in a town of about 38,000 on the Polish border. Long trip, early hour, damn cold Sunday, and Bohemka, as the fans call their team, had already clinched promotion to the Gambrinus liga, hence the low turnout. The team can port 150 people on three buses for away games, a thousand-plus might arrive independently on trains and by car, and then there are the distant fans who can’t regularly come to Prague for home games. The total for the long ride turned out to be about 40, the diehard fans of a team known for its diehard fans. The dictionary definition of bohemian is “a person who has informal and unconventional social habits”, and devotees of the squad spelled with a capital-B are indeed a motley lot, comprising rockers, workers and adherents of the leftwing aesthetic they express through homemade stickers, such as one that shows a spliff passing from hand to hand and says “Bohemka – Connecting People”, spray-painted slogans, and, on one woman that Sunday morning, a shock of hair dyed Vršovice green.
When the Bohemians 1905 face off next season against Gambrinus liga stalwarts such as Sparta Praha and this year’s league champion, Slavia Praha, they might be occasionally outmatched on the field. Mostly because they’re outmoneyed: Cold cash compiled Prague’s perennial top-two teams, contrasted to the supporter-owned trust that in part keeps Bohemka going. The fans might find themselves occasionally outmachoed by the often rightwing hooligans who people the ultras sections at AXA and Eden, where Sparta and Slavia respectively play. But, judging from the home-grown aromas wafting through the home side in Vršovice, Bohemians partisans will never be outmellowed. And they deserve it, as fighting for the team has taken a lot recently.
In the most extreme example of fans’ dedication amid despair, they rescued the team from bankruptcy. The 1,700-plus-member Družstvo fanoušků Bohemians co-operative formed on 21 March 2005 to keep the team afloat, and has members from across the country, across the Continent, and across the Atlantic. “We feel that this team is ours,” said 35-year-old Robert Poláček, a musician, lifelong fan and No 157 on the Družstvo list. “Bohemka are me,” he said, “And I am Bohemka now.”
Be fans Antifa, apolitical or closet rightist, the uniting colours for the Bohemians’ various factions run green and white; the symbol that really counts is a kangaroo. These, though, were in danger until a few weeks ago. In the fire sale that came with the bankruptcy, the previous owners dealt the name, the stripes, and the logo to a club once – and, perhaps soon again to be – called FC Praha 9 Střížkov. For now, two teams play under the same insignia. Fans of the Vršovice version created a Facebook group for “those of you who hate Bohemians Praha”. Many might miss the distinction, but, between the opposing parties, whether that B word is followed by 1905 or Praha makes all the difference. May brought good news, first that clinch on the 15th, and then a decision by the Industrial Property Office on the 28th that the right to sport those hues and feature that marsupial belongs to the inhabitants of Ďolíček alone. Though the Střížkov side has promised that the fight isn’t over, the Bohemians 1905 homepage offers a new shirt in the Fanshop: “There’s only one Bohemka”. Supporters have come up with a ditty to add to their long list of hymns: “Fucking Střížkov,” sung over and over again. “This is a big day for Bohemka and our fans – maybe more important than advancing to the first league,” said Jiří Hlinka, number 330 in the Družstvo and also leading the charge for a group called Ďoliček S.O.S. (more about that in a bit). “It perhaps means a definitive end to this absurd situation that two sets of Bohemians are playing in the Czech Republic: one true, ours from Ďolíček, and the other false.”
Free-love football
The journey east on 31 May took seven hours, thanks to several breaks: Gas stations served for smoking cigarettes and stocking up on suds. Men who hadn’t resorted to a bottle on the ride headed for the bushes; the handful of women got the toilets. Michal Holas (No 1,529 in the Družstvo), who has been in charge of the Bohemians 1905 fan club for 25 years, prohibits hard liquor and wine. “He is a very big puritan,” teased 30-year-old Robin “Lombardos” Stron, who moonlights as a database specialist when he’s not working the fans up dressed as the kangaroo that has represented the team since a 1927 trip to Australia. It’s pure practicality for Holas, who warned his wife when they met 19 years ago that he would be at every home game and also out of town every other weekend. A quarter century of these rides, and you learn the hard way which libations best sustain spirits over several hours on the road and which, well, might cause the fans to represent the visiting side poorly.
A few dozen police officers were on hand in Třinec to ensure things went smoothly, and, aside from a few fizzling fireworks, they did. Go to AXA Arena in Prague 7, and the graffiti broadcasts that “Kosovo is Serbia”; at Ďolíček, it’s “Siempre Antifascista”. Shaved heads and Thor Steinar shirts in Ostrava versus dreadlocks and kangaroo-emblazoned scarves draped over Bob Marley tees in Vršovice. For Holas (Družstvo number 9, and a member since Day 1 of its inception), it’s all about the game: “Politics shouldn’t belong to football,” he said on the bus. Though he added that “of course, the leftwingers are closer to my opinion than the Nazis”.
It might just be the politcs of the team’s followers that draws such a diverse bunch to Ďolíček. “They’re anti-racist,” Tony Temperante, an American who has followed the team for four years now, said one afternoon at Riegrovy sady. “They’re the only team I’ve seen where black fans, Asians, Gypsies, will actually show up and sit with Czechs who are crazy fans of Bohemians. They’re definitely very inclusive.”
Save our stadium
Many would surely miss such an atmosphere. There’s talk of tearing down the field and erecting condos, the equivalent for the Bohemian bloc of paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. Options exist: moving to Eden, just two tram stops away on Vršovická street but also the home of Slavia; moving to Strahov; building bigger and better elsewhere. None of them appeal, so for now it’s a fight. These are fans well-accustomed to carrying placards, and some of the latest ones read “Eden No!” “Essentially, we’re at home in Ďolíček,” said Ďolíček S.O.S.’s Hlinka. “And when – symbolically stated – our roof wears out, we will not move away when it would be enough to fix the holes and apply a coat of paint. Unfortunately, though, we are in a fight against developers and various interests that are not interested in inscribed culture, historical awareness, or genius loci. Maybe, though, the current economic crisis will teach people to weigh nonlucrative history against insecure building investments.” That history stretches back almost 85 years, when AFK Vršovice – already wearing green and white, but not the Bohemians until that 1927 trip to Australia – played their first match at Ďolíček.
It’s not just the heritage that appeals for fans, though: There’s also this sense for many that a team like the Bohemians 1905 is honouring football’s traditions, even in era when sport has grown increasingly commercial. David Jones, who has been a Bohemians 1905 since he went to his first game back in the 1996-97 season. “I’m more into football now than I ever was,” said the 41-year-old native of Buckinghamshire (Družstvo No 1,454). “The atmosphere is a bit like the atmosphere was in England 20 years ago, 25 years ago,” he said. “At Bohemians it’s still very much about the fans. “
In contrast to all the recent battles won – saving the team, saving the name, taking first in the league – and the ongoing fight for the stadium, there was nothing really much on the line in Třinec, and so it didn’t matter much that the game ended in a 1-1 tie. The fans contented themselves with beer and sausage and songs: there’s Sborově Bohemians (“In chorus Bohemians / Bohemians Bohemka”, sung to the tune of Hey Jude), Go Go Bohemka (slightly more words to the tune of Yellow Submarine), Bohemka gól (mostly “Bohemians goal”, mostly like When the Saints Come Marching In), for a few examples. The road home took less than six hours, even with a 30-minute food break, and the drinking and the singing slowed down considerably. Throats were hoarse, and the Bohemians nation had to save up their strength for the final game of the season. They added a new song this year, after all. Directed at opposing teams and their fans, it can be used whenever, but is especially handy when the other guys score. “We’re first – so what?”
