My new life without alcohol and late nights doesn’t mean no football and this weekend, I was in little Nasielsk to watch “The Wild Cats” play “The Airport Boys”! This match was between MLKS Żbik Nasielsk and RKS Okęcie Warszawa and it was my first time to visit this town, Nasielsk. It’s very reachable on a direct train from Warszawa Gdanska and it is the latest in my ongoing wacaday football series, Śmieszne Historie o Piłce Nożnej w Polsce. #footballgeek #groundhopper #Nasielsk #okecie #warszawa
This was an excellent footballmatch and due to my recent detox, it is probably my first post on here about football where I was on zero alcohol beer! It had a Zico Mexico 86 reminisce, as you will read! This was also another spontaneous trip to a new town this weekend; I hadn’t heard of Nasielsk before, nor planned it.
Getting To Nasielsk
Getting to Nasielsk was easy by train. There are regular direct trains from Warszawa Gdańska train station and the single ticket costs about 12 złotych (£2). It’s a very pleasant and fast journey, on the KM line – Kolejowe Mazowieckie. I headed with Rafal, who had the idea of this trip. Rafal and I have been to over 150 matches together by now!
Arrival In Nasielsk
On arrival we got a small bus from the train station to the town centre, this costs 5 zlotych (£1).
Nasielsk Sightseeing
In terms of Sightseeing in Nasielsk, there is the main square (rynek), towering Church and Baszta (tower). However, the town has 4 significantly good murals and we checked them all out.
3 of these murals are in the same location, one has actual buttons on the mural, due to the town’s connection to the manufacturing industry and the button factory here. The final mural os on the wall of a school on the walk back to the train station (we got the bus to the town, and walked back).
Then after grabbing some snacks and non alcoholic beers, we headed to the football stadium for the match.
The Stadium(s)
There are actually two stadiums here side by side and both are Zbik Nasielsk stadiums. The old one and the new one. They are both on the edge of the town, on Sportowa, 05-190 Nasielsk – Stadion Miejski. There were two matches that day, but both were in the new stadium – the old one is mostly used for training nowadays.
Today’s match, and most of the matches here are held in the new stadium, with the old one having no pitch markings on it, but it’s used for training purposes. It did seem strange that such a good old stadium with 500+ seats was left abandoned in favour of the swanky new one. In Northern Ireland, a stadium of 500+ seats would be snapped up by any club – I particularly thought of Ards FC who haven’t played a home match since about 2001.
The Match
The pitch was actually a 4G surface. We took our seats in the main seated stand section along one side of the pitch. We sat there for the first half and the match got underway – the teams were well balanced and it was an even game.
The away side RKS Okęcie Warszawa scored a neatly worked goal in the first half to go 1-0 up – super move. Then the home side hit the post, then the home side got a penalty at the start of the second half. But the taker copied Zico in 1986 and the Okęcie Joel Bats saved it from the Cats!
Then The Wild Cats got a break and lobbed it over the keeper for 1-1. A frantic finish but overall a 1-1 share of the spoils made for good entertainment. This was my first time to visit this town. It’s very reachable on a direct train from Warszawa Gdanska. #footballgeek #groundhopper #Nasielsk #okecie #warszawa
Final score –
Zbik Nasielsk 1 – 1 Okecie Warszawa
Links to the clubs –
https://www.facebook.com/MLKSZbikNasielsk/
https://www.facebook.com/rks.okeciewarszawa
Here are some videos from the trip to Nasielsk: