AS Trencin v Legia Warsaw
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| Welcome to .... |
To err once…who sang ‘It’s all just a little bit of history repeating’? Shirley Bassey with the Propellerheads? Either way, what I do know is that for a 2nd day in a row, I’m in the wrong town for the match. Today, I possibly have time to right several wrongs, but my day has been thus:
Arrive in Trencin (on a Bratislava to Zilina train, the importance of which will become clear) at about 8am. No, there’s nowhere to store luggage. I decide to go to Zilina, where my (much) later train is leaving from anyway. There’s a left luggage room, which (she says) will be closed from 11pm-1am tonite. That’s fine, I’ll be due back from Trencin c.2am. I put my stuff in left luggage despite concerns there WON’T be anyone on at 2am. Half a minute later I spy proper lockers. I decide to trust her.
Next train back to Trencin was an hour and a half later, so I mooch around, reading. I’m getting the express back, one hour, as opposed to one and a half.
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| The view from the railway tracks. |
Trencin’s stadium is close by the railway station – you can’t miss it, courtesy of the oversized floodlights. I walk anti-clockwise around and it becomes obvious the stadium only has one side. The rest is a building site, though the movement of heavy lorries seems more concerned with additional road and rail building than any stadium development.
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| Police in Trencin station...a surefire sign of a game on!? |
Even though some players were kicking ball around and there were 3 or 4 people hanging around the main entrance, something wasn’t right. So I asked if there was a game on here tonite: no, the team were playing in Zilina. WTF? I’ve got off a train to Zilina to wait an hour and a half for another train to Zilina, drop my bags off there, wait another hour and a half for a train back to Trencin…and the game is back in Zilina? Nightmare. So it’s 4:45pm, I’m on the train back to Zilina…surely I’ll still be in Zilina in time for this game?
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| Players practising. |
Well, indeed I was, back in time for kick-off. And yes, the stadium was easy to find (again, virtually next to the train station) and no, I can’t come in. Turns out there were no tickets on sale on the day, so, despite an internet secondary sales site describing the match as ‘sold out’, it wasn’t. Presumably the local police were so paranoid about playing Legia (there were ‘robocop-style’ police everywhere) that they forbid on-day sales?
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| What's left of the old terrace. |
Anyway, I ended up watching the game in a deserted bar and you’d be lucky if there were 4,000 in the ground, inc. about 500 from Warsaw. Grrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!! I am not best pleased, not best pleased at all.
***Later internet research shows the Trencin stadium as having had a low terrace around three sides, with oval ends, and plans to replace the 3 sides with a new, all-seater stands. The 4th side (the main stand) is all that is left.
The
Tunes:
Blue Bell Knoll (Cocteau Twins)Music In Exile (Songhoy Blues)
Portishead (Portishead)
Mixmag Dec ’15 (One Hour With Damian Lazarus)
Spirit of Eden (Talk Talk)
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| They're so huge they're not even in the stadium. |
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| A floodlight towers over the Main Stand. |
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| Stand? check. Floodlight? check. Castle? check. |
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| Behind the main stand. |
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| The Main Stand. |
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| Main Stand (and remnants of terrace, far end). |
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| Mestsky panorama |
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| One old entrance. |
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| Now I'm confused... |
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| A nice souvenir for somebody... |
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| Behind the goal. |
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| The stand from behind the goal. |
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| The old stadium plan. |
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| Communist era concrete heaven. |
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| OUtisde of Zilina's stadium. |
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| The Main Stand. |
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| 'Hard cheddar if you want a ticket.' |
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| Back of the Main Stand. |
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| I spy...a team bus! |
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| Haven't I seen this once today? |
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| A bridge into the stadium. |
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