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I go back to Bla...nsko

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A quaint spot just outside the ground.  When considering the title for this blog, it was essentially a choice between an Amy Winehouse reference, or an AC/DC reference. Naturally I went for the former, as I much prefer Winehouse to a band whose singer legitimately sounds like Elmo. In any case, it's still perhaps a little too subtle, especially for those unfamiliar with Winehouse's seminal 2006 album. All that said, after a disappointing and dull trip to Vienna last week, I was staying a little more local this week via the half hour train up to Blansko, and things weren't looking so rosy so far this season. Before the game, only Polánka, Karviná B, Slovácko B, and Hlučín are keeping Blansko off the bottom of the MSFL, with the former of these actually having beaten their kind hosts 3-1 a couple of weeks back. That said, there have been three wins so far - at the aforementioned Karviná B (1-2), at home to Vsetín (2-0), and a huge one at Unie Hlubina (0-4).  As far as every...
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Fear and Loathing in Vienna

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The scene of the crime...a crime against football.  The last time I was at Austria Vienna's stadium, it had been part of a highly unusual yet enjoyable evening in September 2022, yet there wasn't a single Austrian on the pitch. That was because the Generali Arena was hosting a friendly match between Qatar and Chile for some reason. It was a great game, which finished 2-2 and involved a brief cameo from Ben Brereton-Diaz, but with the stadium more than half-empty, I would definitely need to return for an Austria Vienna game at some point. Fast forward three years and that point has finally arrived. Back in August, I visited Austria's fierce rivals, Rapid Vienna as they played out a goalless draw against Rheindorf Altach , but now comes the turn of Austria Vienna as they host Blau-Weiss Linz. The hosts should be absolutely buzzing following their 3-1 win at Rapid, and given that away fans couldn't attend, they'll certainly be welcomed home as heroes. The previous visi...
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Šump up the volume: Heading North to the Beautiful Hill

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An average beer, but a lovely place to 'enjoy' it  With Zbrojovka again playing at home on the Saturday of this weekend once again (Rymarenko ole!), it was down to Sunday to offer me the chance of visiting somewhere new. On this occasion, I opted to take the train north two hours or so to the town of Šumperk, which according to Wikipedia was both industrial and historical in equal measure. For whatever reason, its name on the railway station departure board always stood out to me. The name itself comes from German origins (Schönberg), roughly translating as 'beautiful hill', which given its location in the Hanušovice Highlands, makes a lot of sense. The football club ply their trade in Divize F, which is the regional fourth tier of the Silesia region, though they switch regional divisions often given their location which could reasonably fit in any one of the three Moravia-Silesia divisions.  They've also been switching between the fifth and fourth tiers throughout ...
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Little Paradise, or Little Tomato? Ladies and Gentlement; the Czech Fifth Tier

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 Those who know me well enough will know I'm a sucker for an amusing auto-translation courtesy of Google. For instance, I've bored people to death with tales of what some of my students surnames were translated as via the web browser: Crookedhead, Hobby, and perhaps my favourite of all, when I covered a class with a student named Richard the Poodle.  Rest assured that isn't limited to just students or names, but also towns and football clubs - for example, I've had Rosice auto-translate to dew, Svratka auto-translate to vomit, and my favourite of all, Dosta Bystrc-Kninicky - a club in the fifth tier - translate to Enough Quick Witted Bookworm.  Now it was the turn of Olympia Ráječko, for whom the village they represent has somehow managed to give me two excellent translations. As you'll gather from the title of this blog, they are Little Paradise or Little Tomato - choose your fighter carefully young warrior... In any case, it was to be the final part of an eventful...
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Prague's Hidden Gem: Viktoria Žižkov

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This bin certainly knew the score come midday... Back in September of 2023, I had the pleasure of catching a 6am train to Prague for Zbrojovka's away match at Viktoria Žižkov. While the day was excellent with new and old friends alike, the result for Zbrojovka was a poor 4-2 defeat to a Žižkov side who hadn't got going before this encounter. That said, at least it was an entertaining  defeat. Fast forward almost exactly a year, and it's another 4-2 defeat at the hands of Žižkov. I didn't attend this time, but it was nice of them to repeat the game for those that didn't manage the 2023 encounter. This season, Viktoria Žižkov v Zbrojovka Brno happens once again, almost another year to the day. Surely third time's the charm, right? For whatever reason, after my first and only visit so far, I didn't write a blog on Žižkov, though that works to my advantage this weekend. The plan for me is to head up at some point on Saturday and stay with some good friends befor...
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The Tumultuous World of Dukla Praha

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Josef Mazopust; arguably the greatest Czech footballer of all time.  For many people, Dukla Praha will only be a familiar name to a certain kind of British hipster, given that the club lend their name to indie outfit Half Man Half Biscuit's renowned 'All I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit'. That said, there's a hell of a lot more than what meets the eye with this club, who've endured highs and lows to extents that would make Portsmouth's recent history look like a succession of top half Premier League finishes. This is a club that, after all, have two founding dates on their Wikipedia page - 1948 and 1998. So before we even begin to look into this weekend's fixture of choice - Dukla Praha v Hradec Kralove - let's dive into one of Czech Republic's most complicated teams.  Initially founded as ATK Prague in 1948 ( Armádní tělovýchovný klub , which translates as Army Sports Club), the club won eight league titles in the first seventeen year...
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Under the Koš: A trip to Slovakia's second city

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One of  Košice's many fountains. In many ways, Czech and Slovak football are incredibly similar, perhaps unsurprisingly given the joint history of both nations. One reason I point this out, however, is that until very recently, neither second city had a club in the top flight, or at least neither city had a stable, prolonged presence in the top flight. Zbrojovka Brno have famously yo-yo'ed between the two, where FC Košice have technically only existed since 2018. From a legal point of view, FC Košice are a new club, though they are the unofficial follow up of VSS Košice, founded in 1903 and dissolved in 2017, at least as far as the fans are concerned. As a result, promotion to the First League in 2023 meant that Košice finally had a team in the top flight for the first time in almost a decade. It goes without saying that the new iteration of Košice don't have a lot of history, but to summarise it briefly, their first season saw them get promoted immediately from...
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