Liga I, Polska
Stadion Miejski, Tychy
Tychy was probably the only big team in the vicinity that I have not yet visited. I always meant to but being really close, I always postponed it. Finally I had a free Sunday with early 12-40 kickoff.
I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure that Tychy is mostly known for its beer. Tyskie beer is omnipresent in Poland and is one of the top top beers here. It's also famous for its hockey team. In fact, hockey is probably more popular and way more successful than football in Tychy. Tychy hockey arena sits prominently in the city and is adjoined with a railway station. Buses from Krakow also stop near the arena. I have yet to see any hockey games outside of Krakow mainly because they are never on Saturdays.
I have not checked the weather forecast so I thought it would be just gloomy but turned out there was a whole day of rain in front of me. And that's why I have not seen much. But from all accounts, there is not too much to see in Tychy as it's a so called "new town". These towns were mostly built and/or developed during the communist regime and thus consist of modernist socialist architectural standards. Fittingly, GKS Tychy can also be considered a "new" team as it was only founded in 1971 and it was only recently reformed in a series of mergers and renamings. It also plays in a very new stadium that was fully rebuilt and commissioned in 2015.
I walked towards the stadium before it began to rain. The town was empty and the apartment blocks all looked alike. By the time I had a cup of coffee and reached the ground, it was all wet, cold, rainy and miserable. The fan-shop was closed for some reason, maybe because it was Sunday, though it's still weird. I got a ticket and was happy to go inside under the roof.
There was hardly anyone to watch the game. Last season GKS lost the promotion playoff final and they can probably still contend for promotion this season, so it's a good team. That's why it was weird to see the stands so empty. But at least there was a decent away crowd from Rzeszow considering the weather. But still it did not save the game from being dull. It looked like the players did not want to be there as well. Resovia was probably a bit better, they had a good chance in the first half and then they had a penalty awarded to them. Then we had to wait for a VAR check which took forever and at some point the referee ran to the monitor to check it himself. I don't know why but VAR takes much longer in Poland than in other European games that I see. In the end, the penalty was overturned and the player that was about to take the penalty had to stand at the dot all this time for nothing.
Even though I did not want beer that much, I thought it would be cool to have a cup of Tyskie in Tychy. It did not really warm me, so I went to find some tea during half-time. It was not a regular tea-bag and a cup of boiling water, it was a tank with pre-brewed tea or so it seemed, because it did not taste anything like tea at all, just some sweet warm water.
Second half saw GKS win a penalty but then they missed it, drawing the ire of those few fans in the stands. And then, predictably, Resovia scored from an innocent looking free-kick and GKS could not get enough strength to escape the defeat. I had to leave earlier to get a cup of proper hot drink from a petrol station close to the stadium and then catch a bus to the hockey arena for my bus back to Krakow.
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