Hosts need no more reminders of painful past
Matthias is just one of the 500 or so accredited German media here in Poland for the European championships and our conversation meandered away from that evening’s press duties with the Irish and Spanish and towards Joachim Löw’s side and their chances of going all the way and winning in Kiev on July 1.
“It will be difficult,” he said. “I’m worried about the Dutch but I’m even more worried about what might happen if we finish first in our group and Russia are second in theirs. That would mean a quarter-final between Germany and Russia here in Gdansk and I don’t want that.”
Matthias didn’t need to say any more.
The historical connotations and consequent threat of violence between not just two but three sets of supporters were abundantly obvious to all in a country which had been occupied by both the Nazis and Soviets in the last 73 years.
No doubt, then, that he and many others heaved a huge sigh of relief when the final whistle went in Kharkiv a few hours later with Germany top of the group on six points but they may yet have to face Poland in Warsaw instead.
Not ideal, either.
The tournament has already stumbled through one major flashpoint: Poland and Russia’s meeting in the capital on Tuesday when 7,000 visiting fans, some displaying Communist images, marched from the city centre to the stadium to celebrate Russia Day.
Tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets were used to disperse rival fans — 183 of whom were arrested — and a ‘This is Russia’ banner was draped provocatively from the away section inside the National Stadium during the 1-1 draw.
That the game itself was refereed by a German seemed somehow inevitable given the inextricable and often painful links between the three countries and it has been Poland’s misfortune to be sandwiched between two of Europe’s major powers in more militarised times.
The reminders of those conflicts and enmities are littered throughout the country although the majority of Irish fans who ate, drank and made merry in Poznan’s Stary Rynek will have been unaware that they did so just a 15-minute walk from the city’s famous Citadel. Prussian-built, like so much else in western Poland, it was one of dozens of cities to be declared a fortress by Adolf Hitler and it took the Red Army a month to complete its capture in 1945. Thousands of Germans, Soviets and Poles fell before the city did.
The fort’s remnants are hard to find these days. The Citadel is lost in a vast urban park just north of the Old Town but there are no such layers to peel back for those eager to discover the history of Gdansk.
It was there, in a city then known as Danzig, that the first shots were fired in what would come to be known as the Second World War. The city suffered mightily in the next six years and was virtually rebuilt in the mid-20th century.
Any traces of it’s German past were wiped away by town planners but the effects of nearly half a century under the Soviet thumb were still evident to the thousands of Irish visitors who arrived by train this week and last and crept along its suburban stations and past the famous shipyards.
The ‘Stocznia Gdanska’ district is littered with abandoned ships, cranes, stockyards and warehouses whose broken windows cause the wind to whistle in the winter and more than a few still bear the legend ‘Solidarnosc.
It’s over 30 years since Lech Walesa launched the Solidarity movement in these very streets but the country still has some way to go before it can fully leave the Cold War behind.
Much of the country’s infrastructure serve as relics to a past the Russians and Germans would do well to remember and the Poles would prefer to forget but these championships are being viewed as a stepping stone towards a better future.
“I am convinced that Poland will continue to reap the benefits of these venues long after the tournament has finished,” said Polish FA president and legendary player Grezegorz Lato, “just as it will benefit from the newly-constructed roads, airports and railway station which were also built with the finals in mind.”
Who says it is just football?
