Viktoria Plzen

Ground: Doosan Arena (Stadion mesta Plzne)

Visits: 1

Date: 13th April 2014

Match: Viktoria Plzen - Vysocina Jihlava 1-1 (Czech Liga)

Attendance: 10 846

As I said in earlier reports I want to visit as many new countries as possible this year. For my Easter Holiday, this year the week before Easter, I decided to be on tour for a full week. Going through my options I decided for four days in the Czech Republic and Slovakia before heading for England. That meant seven matches and two new countries for me. Of course I could have skipped England and go to yet another new country. Visiting England during Easter is something I really enjoy though. I would start with a trip to the Czech Republic and once kick-off times were confirmed I made plans to visit Viktoria Plzen on the Sunday, Brno on the Monday evening and then travel from to Brno to Bratislava in Slovakia. Slovan Bratislava had a cup match at 13.00 on Tuesday afternoon which suited me perfectly. I could then go back to Prague on Tuesday evening and would spend Wednesday touristing and then go to Sparta Praha II in the evening for the 3. Liga match. At 03.10(!) on Sunday morning my alarm buzzed and two hours later I was at Copenhagen airport. At 08.45 I was in Prague and after eventually finding my hotel I met up with my friend Jonas outside his hotel. He then drove us to the 100 km to Plzen for the first match on this trip.

Viktoria Plzen played in the Champions League group stage this season and have in recent years been the dominant club in in the Czech Republic. This year Sparta Praha seem to win the league though. Doosan Arena (formerly Stadion mesta Plzne), the home of Viktoria Plzen has been redeveloped in recent years and nowadays has an all-seated capacity of 13 000. The stadium was opened in 1955 and then had running tracks. In the construction work that has taken place in recent years these have been removed and this is now a proper football ground. Viktoria Plzen have plenty of season ticket holders and to be on the safe side I had bought two tickets for the West (main) Stand. As Jonas and I walked round the ground we could notice some strange-looking floodlights. They were probably built for the original ground but when the running tracks were removed they had to be re-designed. As kick-off approached the ground was filling up and in total 10 800 was inside Doosan Arena this afternoon. Around 25 of those had come from Jihlava. The first 25 minutes were quite boring but the match became better and better. 0-0 at half-time but some decent chances for both teams. Viktoria Plzen scored in the first minute of the second half. Both teams then had plenty of opportunities to score but only one more goal in this match. This goal was scored by Jihlava and the match finished 1-1. 3-2 would probably be a better reflection of the match though. After the match I picked up my bag in Jonas' car and said good-bye to him At 18.07 my train left Plzen hl.n and 19.44 I was back in Prague. Once back at my hotel I had a quick shower, read some e-mails before going to bed around 21.30. A very long day came to an end and I quickly fell asleep.

west stand, rear