Hardy(T)'s World Soccer Diary
16/8/96, Prague. All I Want For Christmas...

Here's an article that I submitted to When Saturday Comes...
...and which they rejected! Oh well, their loss...

It was the sort of day that could have been invented for Prague: cold, wet, grey, dreary. Eastern Europe just wouldn't look the same in sunlight. McGrath and I had surfaced, unfeasibly hungover, some time after noon and had, once again, missed the absurdly early 9am checkout at the hostel, thus consigning ourselves to another day in the Paris of the east. Hangovers and sightseeing proving incompatible, we found ourselves at a bit of a loose end. Fortunately, the previous day's reconnaissance mission from the top of the Ruzovy Sad tower and a bit of boning up on local geography revealed that we were less than a mile from the Julika Stadion, home of the once mighty Dukla. We were men on a mission...

Dukla were now languishing in Liga II, following demotion for 'financial irregularities' (ie, they were the Army club and not altogether popular after the fall of the communist regime) and had a suitably delapidated stadium to match. Three sides of drab, concrete terrace just invited the heavens to open, whilst on the fourth side, emerging from a small forest, stood a huge covered stand that would spell brown trouser time for Lord Justice Taylor. As the rain came, McGrath and I enlisted the help of a team of Sherpas and made our way up the near vertical stairway before taking cover halfway up the stand. At the same time, a gaggle of Dukla players appeared on the pitch for a spot of training. Their enthusiasm knew no bounds as a mixture of feigned injuries, cowering in the trainer's dugout and downright disobedience ensued. We watched with half an eye on the players and the other half on the curiously alluring, grey cityscape: mile upon mile of featureless, industrial chaos interrupted only by a pair of ornate cooling towers that looked as out of place as, say, a Brazillian footballer in Middlesbrough.

Once the rain had finished lashing down, we left our refuge and went in search, somewhat optimistically, of anything that might resemble a club shop. Perched precariously on some stilts on the opposite side of the ground was a structure, the like of which is usually reserved for cricket commentators or scoreboard operators. However, it bore the Dukla crest (imagine a red Mickey Mouse head with the word DUKLA emblazoned across it in yellow) and looked to be our most promising lead. We furtively climbed the stairs and found the walls to be lined with photos of Dukla's glory days: games against such European luminaries as Man Utd - with Big Ron mumbling "early doors" to himself in the dugout - and Celtic. On reaching the top of the stairs we discovered we were in the players' bar.

The bar was plastered with more photos of the glory days, but not as plastered as the two old drunks who were propping it up. Not only were they legless, they also couldn't speak a word of English. Nil desperandum. A quick game of Give Us A Clue later and they were pointing us towards the club office at the far end of the ground.

Dukla is more than just football, it's the military athletic and sports club, so the offices were cluttered with pictures and statues of solemn shot-putters, severe cyclists and stern looking sprinters. However, in a far corner, under about an inch of dust, was a sorry looking cabinet brimming (in the loosest sense of the word) with footballing souvenirs. An old man approached us from behind a nearby desk and quickly established that we spoke about as much Czech as he spoke English. Nil-nil. 'O' Level German proved to be our common language and, with gay abandon for the correct use of der, die und das, we managed to negotiate the purchase of two of the chap's finest Dukla away shirts. This extravagance set us back the princely sum of 120kc (about £3.50 each) with an extra 20kc for the badges, which we had to sew on ourselves - imagine having to iron on your own KANCHELSKIS lettering, without the help of a grown-up, it'd be a nightmare. Made from the finest 'Arkwright' cotton, these 60's style, maroon with yellow sleeved garments were a sight for sore eyes. But, more importantly, they were ours. Mission Impossible may have been filmed in Prague, but for us it was Mission Accomplished.

Proudly we made our way back to the hostel, clutching our newly acquired prizes, ready to show them to off anyone and everyone, regardless of whether or not they were mad enough to understand what they were. Sadly we didn't get a chance to watch Dukla play during our stay, but we did watch a stirring 2-2 draw between Prague's current top dogs, AC Sparta, and the useful looking FC Petra Drnovice. But it was all plastic seating, glossy programmes and shirt sponsors and from time to time my thoughts strayed to the grim, crumbling Julika Stadion and Dukla's past glories...

All I wanted for Christmas was a Dukla Prague away kit... whatever did happen to Half Man Half Biscuit?