Niechorze: A football oasis on the Polish Baltic Sea

Oh, you beloved Niechorze. In the summer, 100,000 little people visit you every day who love semi-proletarian charm and a rough sailor tone. Even in early September, a few tens of thousands of Poles with their 50,000 dogs (along with a pleasantly small number of German vacationers) still trudged through the pine forests towards the Baltic Sea in search of cheap local recreation.

A swim in the crowd strolling from morning to night is definitely wonderful if that’s what you’re into. Fleeing from the musty masses, we found an oasis of football in the seaside resort that was called Horst until 1945. Grass field, blue-yellow-white club colors, a griffin in the region’s coat of arms. The coastal footballers from Ludowy Klub Sportowy Wybrzeże Rewalskie Rewal invited to a relegation polka against a team from near Poznań. At 33 degrees Celsius in the shade, we asked ourselves why we weren’t on the beautiful Baltic Sea beach. Because all the seats there are already occupied by people who are very far from football and even obnoxious early risers. And as shy black coats, we generally only dip our little toes into the green-brown water after dark.

Ballhaus East

Imago/Matthias Koch

Frank Willmann looks at the football between Leipzig, Łódź and Ljubljana.

So now fifth league in Poland. There is no shade at the football field, but behind the stands there is a lonely oak tree that we immediately annex. The game starts a little later because the home team’s striker was still stuck in a traffic jam in his SUV; Saturday is also a tourist departure and arrival day in Poland. Finally “Highway to Hell” sounds and the white Rewalers enter the field. 50 local, young Tifosi cheer with joy, while two away fans hide their bald heads under their T-shirts for sun protection. »Goal!Goal!Goal! Tak!Tak!Tak!” is the sound of corner kicks, then there is peace for the moment because the opponent puts the balls into the net for the Rewalers, who are stuck in second-to-last place in the table, without hesitation.

It quickly becomes 0:3 when a few gentlemen over 70 arrive in the shade of the oak tree. And lo and behold, two of the gentlemen speak German. They are tennis football players who go from tournament to tournament and take złoty out of tourists’ pockets while playing football tennis. Shashlik, the bear, the gray one, the beard – they address each other by nicknames and come from Szczecin, Świnoujście and Kołobrzeg, where they actually used to make dumplings in the Polish first league. Nowadays the pension is not enough. So why not take the money out of the pockets of well-fed tourists? I nod, good business idea. Do you want a beer?

4 p.m., 32 degrees in the shade, I don’t want any beer because otherwise I’ll quickly become nothing more than a football tennis ball. They like that, they stroke my barely-there tummy goodbye and trot in formation to the concession stand. Beer and a scalded polish with lots of cracklings form the diet of this generation of athletes. I look admiringly after the dancing crowd and bravely postpone the opening of my first Polish beer by an hour from 7 p.m.

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