I’ve seen enough episodes of Copa90’s ‘Derby Days’ by now to know that every city has its own unique footballing rivalry. But when Krakow’s two top-flight teams Wisła and Cracovia meet in the city’s local derby, there’s a lot more to it than just football. In fact, it’s ‘Holy War’. At least, that’s what matches between the two sides have been known as since the 1920s, when Cracovia defender Ludwik Gintel coined the term in a passionate rallying cry to inspire his teammates to victory. Gintel had probably pinched the name from his earlier spell at Jutrzenka, one of the city’s now-defunct Jewish clubs, whose own pre-1939 derby games against fellow local Jewish side Makkabi, had previously been the only Holy War in town.
The on-field rivalry between Wisła and Cracovia has shown few signs of cooling down since then, but it’s off the pitch where it really gets serious. Hooligans affiliated with Krakow’s two clubs were the only ones in Poland who refused to sign the 2004 Poznan Pact in which all other firms agreed to stop using weapons when fighting each other, earning the city both a fearsome reputation and the nickname ‘City of Knives’. As recently as 2011, members of Wisła’s ultras ‘The Sharks’ were found guilty of brutally murdering a member of a Cracovia hooligan group called ‘The Jude Gang’. Bill Shankly’s oft-repeated quip about football being more important than life and death surely wasn’t intended to be taken so literally, but these guys don’t mess around. Even the COVID-19 lockdown didn’t put an end to the violence, with one incident in June 2020 leading to the hospitalisation of a Cracovia supporter following a machete attack from Wisła fans.
Political hooligan
But these kinds of incidents don’t just happen in Krakow. As Poland prepared to co-host the 2012 European Championships, the international media drew considerable attention to football-related violence across the country, most notably in the BBC Panorama documentary ‘Stadiums of Hate’. The potential for hooliganism to overshadow the tournament and inflict considerable damage on Poland’s international image called for drastic action from then Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Long before using his position as President of the EU Council to warn Brexiteers they had earned a ‘Special Place in Hell’ for misleading the British public, Tusk spent time in his youth fighting alongside the hooligans of his hometown club Lechia Gdansk. Not that this caused him to sympathise with such behaviour years later after coming to power. The measures Tusk introduced to control what went on in and around stadiums made him a highly unpopular figure amongst many Polish ultras. It became commonplace to see banners held aloft during games throughout Poland displaying anger towards Tusk, whilst some Legia Warsaw fans even sent him death threats by post.
