On Sunday (July 21), ebut.pl Stal Gorzów will host NovyHotel Falubaz Zielona Góra in a derby. The match is scheduled to start at 19:15 and it will probably happen. But nine years ago, activists from Zielona Góra did their best to delay the match as they were waiting for their team captain, Darcy Ward, to arrive on the pitch. The Australian changed into Kevlar to run to the machinery yard, and then ran away in an amazing competition!
Complete article below the video
It was 2015 and Zielona Gora’s last chance match. They had to win and extend their chances of qualifying for the playoffs.
– I remember it clearly. Three days earlier we had a long-awaited match in Tarnów and I wanted the Australian to stay in Poland. However, he repeatedly asked me to let him travel to Great Britain due to family matters. He assured me that everything was fine in Gorzów and that he did not need training. In addition, one of Peter Jones’ engines was to be delivered to him for the match. I was confident that he would not fail and let him go. I only agreed with him that a car with a driver would be waiting for him on Sunday in Berlin. He was supposed to land at 1:30 p.m. and arrive at the stadium in Gorzów around 3:00 p.m., where the derby was waiting for us at 5:00 p.m. – Jacek Fraczak, the then manager of Zielona Gora, told us.
The activist turned pale and sat down when the Australian called him on Sunday, just hours before the match, and told him he had made a mistake.
– I thought my flight from England was at 10:50, but it was actually at 10:05. I ran to the gate and tried to convince the agent to stop the plane. I offered her 10,000 euros. She even called the pilot but he refused, Ward said years later on the Canal+ Sport show “This is the highway.”
Ward cried like a baby!
– At 11:20 (Polish time) he called and said he saw a plane leaving. He cried and asked what he should do now? He was upset because everything had gone wrong again because of him, because he had caused chaos for his club. I quickly calmed him down. The former manager said: You should have calmed down and started taking action.
The Australian missed his flight not only because of his laziness, but also because of an unexpected traffic jam on the motorway caused by a car accident. Even with him in the squad, Zielona Góra had little chance of winning in Gorzów, as they were already weakened by the absence of Jaroslav Hampel (they used a substitute for him) and Piotr Protasevich, who suffered a collarbone injury a week ago. Without him, they could have raised the white flag right away. But the fans will not forgive the club for that. That’s why a miracle had to happen.
– The ideas were different. In the end, it was decided that Ward would take the next scheduled flight from London to Berlin, and there would be a light aircraft waiting for him. The whole procedure cost us 20,000. PLN, but it worked. At 5:17 pm the speedway racer arrived at the stadium, Vraczak said.
Porsche stadium gnało z pola na
The manager asked for help from the Lubusz district flying club, which sent a plane to Tegel airport. The formalities were handled by Valopaz supporters from Przeleb airport. The bikers’ only task was to quickly pass through passport control and jump on the plane. Frątczak and the rest of the Zielona Góra team lost their nerve because the flight from London was delayed by 22 minutes. He flew from Berlin to Gurzów by plane for more than 40 minutes. The pilots took risks and flew very fast. Valopaz’s manager was in constant contact with them by phone. Finally, at 5:06 p.m., the plane landed at the private Olem airport. “Basically, in the area of my friends,” Frątczak explained.
There, a Porsche was already waiting for Ward, who had originally been sent to Berlin, and who was supposed to take him to the stadium in 7 minutes.
But at that time, the atmosphere in the stadium was very tense. Valopaz requested a 15-minute delay in the start of the match, but the home team refused and the match began.
– Extraliga and TV agreed to wait, but the Stahl activists did not believe Ward’s appearance. They thought I was cheating. The coach revealed that I had to play the match on my own terms.
They returned the deposit for a small change.
Ward was initially supposed to start in the first race as a replacement for Jaroslav Hampel, however, Frątczak sent Andreas Johnson onto the track, and after the race he protested about Linus Sundstroem’s carburetor.
He chose the Swede only because his box was the furthest away. The deposit was 1,000 zlotys. It was known that Stahl’s equipment was legal, but time was of the essence.
– We have already prepared the bail amount in advance, in the smallest possible banknotes (10 Polish zlotys), so that the judge will have to count longer – the director admitted.
Thanks to this, the Australian gained a few extra minutes, was able to change his clothes on the way to the parking lot and started in fourth gear.
He led brilliantly. He scored 20 points in the whole game. – He would have had 21 goals, but in the 13th round I asked him to let Nils Christian Iversen pass and he did it. A draw in this race meant nothing to us, because I only had three players on goal. I would have preferred to lose 2:4, increase the loss to 6 points, and be able to use the tactical reserve in the first qualifying round – revealed Fraczak.
In the end, the “manager’s miracles” did not allow Valopaz to win. In the 14th race, the guests’ hopes of winning were shattered by Bartosz Smarzlik, who put Andreas Johnson and Patrick Dudek behind him. Ward won the last race, but Johnson finished last and the guests could not even get the bonus. 48:42 in favor of MoneymakesMoney.pl Stal meant that neither team scored an extra point. – There are no more such matches. Nobody does such miracles – summed up Frątczak, whose Valopaz finished the season in fifth place.
source:Onet Sports Review
Date of creation: July 19, 2024 at 09:42
Journalist at Przeglad Sportówny Unie
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