Hungover air of anticipation descends on Poznan
Although the city was celebrating a religious festival yesterday, there was nothing holy about some of the hangovers being sported by Irish, Spanish, and Polish revellers this morning.
One bemused onlooker was Matt O’Donoghue from Kerry. Living in Poland for the past four years, he was proudly decked out in his Kerry regalia, for once having the chance to wear his county colours in company.
“I’ve been here for a couple of years,” he said. “As you can see, it’s really a lovely city, the people are great. I don’t have a bloody word of Polish but the Irish will love it here, they seem to be already anyway.”
Once Peter Gawalkiewcz and his wife Marta heard the unmistakable Munster brogue in operation, they simply had to come over and say hello.
Having been based in Midleton in Cork for six years, where Peter worked on motorway projects, his surname was eventually jokingly changed to McCarthy. His Polish surname just didn’t cut it.
“We are thinking of going back again as there isn’t much work here. Obviously, we want Poland to do well but I’m half-Irish so I’ll be cheering for your boys,” he said.
Another person in the group who is half-Irish is Peter’s son Anthony, who Marta assured me may have been born in Poland but was “made in Ireland”.
While football was the talk of the town in Poznan, all Peter wanted to know about was how his beloved Munster were faring.
His disappointment was palpable when he was informed that Leinster had won the Heineken Cup. His two-word reaction was pretty much to the point: “Fucking bastards.”
It elicited a quiet cheer from the posse of Munster men in the vicinity.
In fact, neither football nor rugby was on the minds of much of the male contingent of fans. After one night on the town, the beauty of the Polish women wa a hot topic of conversation.
Two lads who got luckier than most were Craig Trumble and Jonathan Thornton from Dublin. Both 20 years old, they were nursing a hangover in the Old Square, but had been given a tour of the city the previous night.
“We went on a pub crawl with a load of Polish girls,” said Jonathan. “Ah man, it was unreal. We went to a heap of pubs and they took us to a club in the end. I’ll be going home with a pain in my neck turning to look at all the women here. It’s unreal.”
Lodgings were low on the list of priorities, but Craig assured me it would do, as they were only in town for the first game.
“It’s more like a gaff than a hotel. The bed is tiny but it’s grand. We’ll stick it out and if we land some tickets we might have to put up with it for a few weeks.”
Quality lodgings were no such concern for the Ballincollig and Ovens contingent in Poznan.
Having stepped out of the Wild West-themed bar which seems to be the hub for most of the Irish fans, Jason Doyle, Martin Foley, Cathal O’Sullivan, and Keith Whitley shelled out €2,500 between them to rent a swanky pad in Poznan. Campervans were out, I was informed, particularly as the lads were already quite the media darlings.
“Too old for the tents business to be honest so we got a decent place. It’s great here. We had singsongs with Portuguese and Polish lads last night. There’s great banter around. Sure we’ve been on radio and TV already, even did an interview on Fox News, I think.”
Trust a Dub to intrude on proceedings, but a crutch-wielding fanatic stuck his head into view to inform all and sundry, using some colourful language in the process, that we should be eating some of the Polish delicacies like strawberries in garlic sauce.
Who were we to argue? It only gets crazier from here on in.
From testicle-biting police dogs to sonic cannons capable of inducing involuntary urination, Polish anti-hooligan squads have an array of weapons ready to deal with any troublesome fans at Euro 2012.
The English-language Krakow Post newspaper asserted in an editorial that local law enforcement agencies were more than ready to tackle any hooligan threat during the tournament.
“The Polish police are going to come down on troublemakers like a bag full of anvils and you don’t want to be there when it happens,” the paper warned. “Krakow has a long history of hooligan violence — the local police have seen it all before and they will ruin your day if you try it on.
“These lads’ mums and dads rioted under Soviet machine guns — a few chairs thrown by beered-up fans is not going to intimidate them.
“Do not expect softly, softly police tactics.
“Poland’s anti-hooligan squads are armed with: Shotguns firing baton rounds that probably won’t kill you as long as you’re 30m away; a truck-mounted water cannon affectionately known as ‘the typhoon’; a high-tech sonic cannon that can make you wet yourself on its lowest setting; dogs trained to bite you directly in the testicles.”
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