Karol Nawrocki<\/a>, backed by the nationalist conservative Law and Justice party, was elected last year. He\u2019s known for his long standing allegiance to Lechia Gda\u0144sk, a club from the northern city, and has attended its games since taking office.<\/p>\nFollowing reports during the election campaign that Nawrocki had taken part in a street brawl between soccer fans, he said he had been involved in many \u201cnoble\u201d fights in his life.<\/p>\n
While Nawrocki\u2019s presidency might strengthen the kind of fan culture that AKS Z\u0142y was created to oppose, Dziubecki said that it might actually produce the opposite effect. <\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe more fans will come to our stadium again,\u201d he said with a smile.<\/p>\n
Community ties<\/p>\n
Juliusz Wrzosek, owner of the Offside bar in Warsaw\u2019s Praga district, was one of the founders of the club and can be seen selling tickets at the stadium entrance.<\/p>\n
He said he was a lifelong fan of Legia Warszawa but eventually got kicked out of the more radical section because he refused to sing chants sending greetings to people serving prison terms. During the same period, his friends who supported Polonia, Legia\u2019s rival, were getting marginalized for similar reasons. Together, they decided to create their own club.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you have to support someone,\u201d Wrzosek said.<\/p>\n
His bar isn\u2019t only a meeting place for AKS Z\u0142y fans, but also a venue where the club occasionally organizes social events, often meant to commemorate an aspect of the local history of the Praga district. In March, it co-hosted an event honoring Stefan Okrzeja, a socialist worker who fought for Polish independence at the beginning of the 20th century.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt bothered me that in Poland, a country with a great history of leftist and left-wing values, there isn\u2019t a single club that is democratic, that doesn\u2019t impose its own version of fan culture,\u201d Wrzosek said.<\/p>\n
Rivals are also welcome<\/p>\n
At a recent women\u2019s game in Poland\u2019s second division, AKS Z\u0142y faced a stronger team from S\u0142upca, but fans in the modest stadium in Praga were undaunted.<\/p>\n
They sang songs welcoming the visitors and urging their own side to score to the rhythm of drums. Complaints about the referee were kept to a minimum and polite.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just empty words when you say that the fans are the 12th player, because it really helps and motivates you to give more,\u201d former AKS Z\u0142y player and now supporter Eliza G\u00f3rska-Tran told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old G\u00f3rska-Tran, who attended the game with her wife and two young children, stressed the importance of the supportive community created around the club, which she helped to run after her playing days.<\/p>\n
AKS Z\u0142y embraces LGBTQ+ and immigrant players. The club has always invested in the male and female teams equally. And, at its academy for kids, richer parents help cover the costs of poorer ones.<\/p>\n
G\u00f3rska-Tran said that fans staged a wedding ceremony for her and her partner at the stadium after they married in Scotland, where same sex marriage is legal, unlike in Poland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also remember my last match before I got pregnant, it was an unforgettable experience,\u201d she said. \u201cThere were flares, including rainbow-colored smoke, on the football pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alicja Cicho\u0144ska, who is in her seventh season playing for AKS Z\u0142y, said that she joined the club, because she had heard about the inclusive community built around it.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball should unite us all, not divide us, because there\u2019s enough of that in society already,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WARSAW, Poland (AP) \u2014 A grassroots Warsaw soccer club formed by fans more than a decade ago to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[41005,71,1162,41004,4322,182,1158,133,135,41006,181,1161],"class_list":{"0":"post-76703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-warsaw","8":"tag-eliza-grska-tran","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-jan-dziubecki","12":"tag-lgbtq","13":"tag-poland","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-soccer","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-stefan-okrzeja","18":"tag-warsaw","19":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116531980296096796","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}