The Poland national team were delayed leaving Faroe Islands after Thursday’s Euro 2024 qualifying win and when they finally departed on Saturday they took some stranded supporters with them including Andrzej Bobowski, known as “the king of Polish fans”.
Bobowski has attended the last 12 World Cups but could easily have been stranded and missed the crucial game with Moldova on Sunday without the intervention of the Polish Football Federation (PZPN).
Poland beat the Faroe Islands 2-0 and were due to fly back on Friday, but poor weather put paid to their plans. The charter flight eventually departed on Saturday and with a group of fans facing further delays the PZPN invited them to join the team on the flight back to Warsaw.
Matty Cash of Poland in action during their 2-0 qualifying win over Faroe Islands. Photograph: Leszek Szymański/EPA
Bobowski is usually easy to spot at Poland’s games, wearing his king’s costume complete with crown, but he dressed in everyday clothes for the trip home. With no direct flights from the Faroe Islands to Poland, an already difficult journey for the fans could have turned into a nightmare.
“As always, PZPN book a private charter flight for the team for travel to away matches,” said the PZPN press office. “We departed from Faroe Islands at 10.30am local time and we invited around 10 fans to join us on the flight.”
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Poland were due to train at a later time on Saturday and Moldova agreed to change their own scheduled session, after the Polish team’s flight landed in Warsaw after 2pm local time. For one group of fans at least, as the Polish proverb goes, “after a storm the sun always comes”.