Fourteen hours of air travel over 11 000km: That was the length to which Piotr Matczak was willing to go for his favourite team.
|||Durban - Fourteen hours of air travel over 11 000km: that was the length to which Piotr Matczak was willing to go for his favourite rugby team – the Sharks.
And Saturday’s Currie Cup final against Western Province was just the excuse he needed to hop on a plane from Poland and fly to KwaZulu-Natal to watch the game at Kings Park.
Matczak, 35, whose business is in electrical components, is passionate about the Sharks, and has been an avid fan ever since he watched the team take on the Crusaders during a Super 14 match in 2006. He remembers the day as if it were on Thursday.
“I enjoyed the game, and then I started to understand it and my colleagues explained the rules to me. I then got the spirit for rugby, and I got it from the Sharks,” Matczak said on Thursday.
The names of John Smit, JP Pietersen and Francois Steyn roll off his tongue as he talks about his favourite players in the team back then, although the name of Ryan Kankowski, who is of Polish ancestry, rolls off even more easily.
His favourite player in Saturday’s team is Patrick Lambie.
Matczak’s seven-year-old son, Jan, has a Sharks shirt, and his two-year-old daughter, Amelia, has always had a Sharks Babygro. “She has a shirt that says ‘Born to Tackle’,” he adds excitedly.
Although rugby is played in Poland, Matczak said the standard was not very high, so he never really grasped it. But, since that 2006 game, he has been fanatical, making sure that his business trips in 2009, 2010 and 2011 coincided with a Sharks match in Durban.
In Poland, only the Six Nations and the Rugby World Cup were screened, so Matczak makes sure he watches all the Sharks games on his cellphone. The semi-final against the Blue Bulls last weekend was no exception.
“I was at a children’s party,” he laughed, “but I have an application on my phone that lets me watch it.”
This, however, meets with the disapproval of his wife, Monika, who is not impressed with his rugby enthusiasm.
Nevertheless, he remains gripped, and makes sure he buys a new rugby shirt each time he comes to SA. He now has three Sharks shirts and 10 Springbok shirts.
“I love rugby… and we are coming to SA again on March 2, 2013 when the Sharks play here again. I will be bringing business customers with me that time to show them rugby.”
Incidentally, that game is against the Stormers.
The Mercury