Early years The first reports of clashes between fans during football games date back as far as the 1930s. On 2 June 1935 after a game between
Cracovia and
Ruch Chorzów, the police had to "intervene and surround the field". On 15 June 1936, the
Przegląd Sportowy daily sports newspaper published an appeal by the management of
Śląsk Świętochłowice, asking their fans to "control their behaviour and maintain order". During the
occupation of Poland in
World War II, the
German occupiers banned all sports. However, "illegal" games were played on a regular basis. During one of these matches in
Kraków on 17 October 1943, fans of Cracovia and
Wisła Kraków interrupted the game and started fighting which spread onto the streets of the Ludwinow district in Kraków. The fighting lasted for several hours. After a match on 29 September 1947 in
Sosnowiec, between
RKU Sosnowiec and
AKS Chorzów (ethnic rivalry, derby) fighting broke out resulting in the death of one fan and scores of others injured. Sosnowiec won the match 3–2, however in the first leg AKS Chorzów had won 3–0, meaning they were promoted to the First Division. After the match, 20,000 home fans were slowly moving out of the stadium, pushed by firemen and
Milicja Obywatelska. Skirmishes broke out, and the Milicja Obywatelska functionaries, with guns, lined up on the pitch and attacked the fans with bayonets and the fighting lasted for two hours. Sosnowiec fans tried to attack AKS's players, the referees and the militiamen. Although incidents from the 1920s to the 1960s were numerous, there was no organized hooliganism in Poland.
1970s There is no official information about football related violence in the 1970s as any incidents that happened were not reported by the
Polish media which was compliant with the policies of the Communist authorities in the
People's Republic of Poland. Since then, hooligan firms in Poland have organised themselves and are often influenced by the
skinhead subculture. Some skinhead members of firms are described as "official hooligans", and their role is to take part in disturbances at the stadiums. Other hooligan disturbances followed the Polish national team, with incidents in
Zabrze in 1994, and abroad in
Rotterdam in 1992 and
Bratislava in 1995. In March 2006 a Wisła Kraków fan was dragged from a car and stabbed to death, the eighth stabbing murder in twelve months of football hooligans in Poland. Before the
2006 World Cup in Germany, German authorities and some of the European media were concerned that Polish hooligans would try to disrupt the tournament. However, no major incidents were reported, with isolated clashes taking place such as drunken German and Polish fans clashing in
Dortmund resulting in 300 arrests, half of whom were Polish. It was stated in 2006 that the current football hooliganism in Poland is far worse than the dark days of English football hooliganism in the 1980s, with nearly every Polish professional football club having a fan base rooted in hooliganism. This is especially true now as English football hooliganism has become a rare and harshly punished occurrence, with few firms still running, the most prevalent being "The Soul Crew", the firm of Welsh football club
Cardiff City F.C., who have more fan bans than any other team in the English leagues. In September 2007, Wisła Kraków hooligans killed a
Korona Kielce fan in
Kielce. The Korona Kielce firm had been allied with Cracovia at the time. At the
Euro 2012, despite a generally peaceful tournament, a fight broke after Russian fans marched through the capital Warsaw for their match against Poland and were attacked by Polish hooligans. The only other incident at the tournament held in Poland (and Ukraine) was the fight between
Croatian fans, and the arrest of several
Irish fans, however no Poles were involved. In home derby match against
Legia's reserves, a fight broke out between two sets of
Polonia Warsaw fans in April 2013. The fight broke out due ideological differences and arguments over
apoliticism in the stand among fans. When
Lech Poznań played
Wisła Kraków in May 2013, the Lech fans successfully stole a Wisła flag from the away stand, causing unrest among Wisła fans. Despite this, no actual fights broke out, however the away stand was demolished. In August 2013, in match lower league match
KS Łomianki versus
Polonia Warsaw, hundreds of
Legia fans turned up and tried to attack the visiting fans, although they only clashed with police.
KS Łomianki was later fined for failing to adequately secure the venue and poor organisation was cited. In March 2014, in the first incident inside a top-level stadium in years occurred when
Legia Warsaw fans attacked the visiting
Jagiellonia Białystok fans after Legia fans displayed several previously stolen Jagiellonia flags. The match was abandoned. There were several arrests. A short time later that same year,
Zawisza Bydgoszcz fans began to boycott matches after a match against
Widzew Łódź. The fans claim that the police brutally assaulted fans, when preventing Zawisza and
ŁKS Łódź fans from entering the stadium, including women, the elderly and children, causing one fan to lose their eye. Following the incident, the fans asked to see the security footage, however, the footage was claimed to be lost due to an alleged "technical fault". The club chairman, Radosław Osuch, and a large portion of the media and public opinion, attributed the incident to football hooliganism. On 2 May 2015, at a
Concordia Knurów versus
Ruch Radzionków fifth division match in
Knurów,
Upper Silesia, police started firing
rubber bullets at fans from a close distance after several home fans jumped onto the pitch and ran towards the visiting fans. A 27-year-old fan of Concordia, Dawid Dziedzic, was shot, and despite attempts to resuscitate him he died shortly in hospital hours later. He was a single father, described as a caring parent from a modest background. In the aftermath,
rioting ensued for several days. 46 people were arrested, many injured fans as well as policemen. Thousands of people attended Dziedzic's funeral on 7 May 2015. ==Politics==