Little Paradise, or Little Tomato? Ladies and Gentlement; the Czech Fifth Tier

 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 sporting weekend involving some hockey at Kometa Brno on Friday, some football at Zbrojovka Brno on Saturday, and finally Olympia Ráječko at home to recently demoted Slovan Rosice in the fifth tier. It was just a half hour train from near my flat in Židenice to Dolni Lhota, which was a short walk from the ground.

Going into the game, the Jihomoravsky Krajsky Prebor is already shaping up interestingly, with Slovan Rosice really struggling to adapt to their new level - just the one win in their opening seven fixtures, with that coming courtesy of s 5-2 success over Cezava. Only two clubs have had worse starts - Moravská Slavia and Tišnov. 

As for the hosts, they've had a better start, albeit an unspectacular one. Their season started with a loss on penalties in the cup to Kuřim from the league above, following a 2-2 draw. Their first win came in matchday 4 - a 3-1 win at home to Kunštát, which was subsequently followed by two further victories (1-0 at Dosta Bystrc, and 4-1 at home to Banik Ratíškovice).

Last week they lost 3-2 to Moravan Lednice, who climbed above them as a result. Now Ráječko in 8th, which is precisely mid-table in this sixteen team league. So far, Krumvíř have made a flawless start, and they have games in hand to potentially pull away like Sparta Brno did last season. Only Boskovice-Letovice in 2nd were also unbeaten at this stage going into the weekend. Incidentally, they lost 3-0 at runaway leaders Krumvíř.

Back in the JMKP; Olympia Ráječko v Slovan Rosice

You might think the Czech fifth tier isn't anything special, and you'd probably be right - it's simply a regional fifth tier. That said, football has the possibility to do anything at any level, whether that's bore you to tears or dazzle you with chaos. In the grand scheme of things, the main selling point for me is the opportunity to check out those often untrodden paths in and around the city of Brno.

Thus far, I've ventured south to former cup finalists Banik Ratíškovice, seen many a game in Bystrc, witnessed both Sparta (Brno) and Slavia (Brno), gone barefoot (Bosonohy), and headed down to, errrm, Cocktown (Kohoutovice). This was to be my first fifth tier game in just under a year, having last watched the aforementioned Banik Ratíškovice make a thrilling comeback at home to Boskovice-Letovice in November.

Today's game was between the incessantly fifth tier Olympia Ráječko, and beleaguered and demoted Slovan Rosice. The reason I say that about Olympia is that they've been part of the JMKP for 22 years, which to my knowledge is the longest of any team in the division.

The game between them and Rosice follows two excellent days of sport already, with Kometa and Liberec playing out a thrilling 4-5 at the Rondo - Liberec stealing it with 0.01 seconds on the clock despite trailing for most of the night. Then going back to the football, Zbrojovka grabbed a solid win at home to Jihlava to go top of the second tier. I was hoping for a nice goalfest to round off the weekend.

The train up to Ráječko was as quick as it was beautiful, going through the idylls of South Moravia. I got off at Dolni Lhota before walking across a field via a random goat and two alpacas/llamas (I wasn't sure). Even though the station wasn't technically in Ráječko, it was only a 14 minute walk from station to ground. 

My new friend...

It was the perfect place to watch a game on a lazy and sunny Sunday afternoon, as the last remnants of the so-called babi leto made themselves know. That translates as 'grandma's summer', and is essentially the Czech version of an Indian summer by the way. That said, it was a cagy first half with a couple of golden chances falling to either team. The home 'keeper even seemed to catch the ball across the goal-line, though nothing was given and the first half finished goalless.

Ráječko flew out of the traps in the second-half, with a lovely finish from Jan Pokorný. Rosice pegged them back ten minutes later via a lovely strike from Vojtěch Diviš after some beautiful build up play. Ráječko would have the last laugh, however, as Jan Pokorný, who was despicably wearing the number three shirt, grabbed his second. A stoppage time penalty converted by Pokorný then sealed the three points for the hosts.

After this weekend's results, Ráječko move up to sixth, while Rosice languish down in 14th. And while it's still a long way to go this season, stopping Krumvíř will take some doing.