​Meet the Czech Ultras Who Prefer Spliffs to Scrapping

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

The humble football terrace throws up many a pungent smell: the warm waft of mustardy hot-dogs; the salty whiff of broken monkey nuts; and of course, the fragrant pong of an overflowing pisser. At the Czech football stadium of Bohemians 1905, however, there is one odour that comfortably overrides the others: weed.

Unknown to most European football fans, the Prague-based club play in the Czech top-flight, battling it out with the likes of Sparta Prague, and their bitter local rivals, Slavia Prague. Although their football is of the yawn-inducing sideways variety (like Czech football generally), their fans are extraordinary. Largely made up of beer-drinking, spliff-smoking liberals, the Bohemians 1905 crowd enjoy their football, but even more, they like to party.

The match I'm attending is a gritty, bottom-of-the-table clash between Bohemians and Banik Ostrava – a north-eastern club near the Polish border with a hefty reputation for right-wing thuggery. Both sets of fans, I'm warned, will be well up for it, and though very different in collective expression, will be keen to try and stamp their authority on the terrace.

Bohemians began life as AFK Vrsovice in 1905. In 1927 Australia chose them to represent Bohemia – then the name of the Czech territory – on a tour of the county, and they used the prestige as an excuse to rebrand themselves Bohemians AFK Vrsovice. Several more name changes followed, particularly in the Soviet era, before they eventually settled on Bohemians Praha. During the 1990s a legal wrangle developed over the Bohemians name, which led them to rebrand again as Bohemians Praha 1905 – or the original Bohemians, as they also like to be known.

The Bohemians stadium, unlike those of its wealthier Prague counterparts, is not your glitzy, Champions League fortress, but a tiny ramshackle hut known simply as Ďolíček – or in English, the dimple. The turnstiles are akin to that of a 1980s non-league side, and the main stand is a tin-foil construction seemingly stuck together with Pritt-Stick. On it, however, is a forest of buoyant green and white fans, most of whom I notice are holding a pint, a giant flag, or a spliff.

"I started to go regularly to Bohemians around 2003," David Mlady, one of the throng, tells me before kick-off. "At half-time, everybody pulled out the papers and skinned up. It was just really normal and I doubt there's a single match I've been to where I wasn't within a metre or less of a joint."

As way of demonstration, he casually lights one up and sends it round the group. The act of smoking marijuana, of course, is not illegal here – though the actual legislation is somewhat ambiguous. The law states that a person may carry a bit for personal use, but exactly how much constitutes 'a bit' is not clear – a loophole the Bohemians fans are certainly happy to exploit. One of their most famous songs is a cute ditty entitled "Kouříme trávu" ("We smoke grass"), joyously belted out to the tune of Roll out the Barrel.

The Bohemians mascot behind the goal is fittingly spacey too. Not a green devil or a giant lizard in the team's kit. No, somewhat randomly, they have a kangaroo. The decision was made, apparently, after the 1927 tour of Australia when the club was given two live kangaroos as a gift. Bohemians duly accepted, dumped them both in Prague Zoo, and stuck the marsupial on their badge.

I ask Mlady where the toilets are and he just points to the hill at the side of the stand. I head over and am greeted by a mural of a cartoon man smoking a joint and several fans happily relieving themselves in front of him. I join them and am struck by the complete bizarreness of the situation: I'm holding a beer, peeing down the side of a football stand, and when I look back over my shoulder I can still see all the action on the pitch. It's positively prehistoric by Emirates standards, but the crudeness of it all makes it strangely liberating.

The match finally gets underway and the fans in Sector B are in good voice, aided by the loud beating of drums, and a crazy man on the front netting yelling into a megaphone (pictured above). "We are one big family," says lifelong supporter Dominik Jarkovsky. "In the main stand, you can meet small kids, women, and old men. It isn't like at Sparta or Banik. There you just meet a lot of big bald guys!"

"The fans are also extremely loyal too," adds Petr Homolka, whose flat is just next to the ground. "Especially to the Ďolíček stadium. When the club was almost bankrupt a couple of years ago, it was the fans who saved it by contributing from their own pockets."

According to Jarkovsky, these fans now own about 20% of the club, and it is they who are responsible for the "rebirth of Bohemka."But what's the reason for such solidarity? Why would fans shell out on a football team where you piss down the side of a hill? The answer, it seems, is partly political. The Bohemians Ultras, according to the mass of stickers and banners plastered all over the stand, are fervently anti-fascist.

"Teams like Sparta and Banik have had their right-wing element for as long as I know," explains Mlady. "The fact that they attract neo-Nazis automatically drives others to find a different flag to rally round. A sizable chunk of Bohemians fans like ska, punk and reggae, and they adhere to the idea of no tolerance for racism."

A poignant example of this ideological mismatch occurs after Bohemians get their first goal. The Banik supporters, with shirts off and skinheads shining under the floodlights, pull out a huge banner that reads: "All European hools against Muslim paedophiles and goat-fuckers!" with the charming addendum of, "Hooligans fuck Islam."

I am aghast by what I'm seeing, but the Bohemians fans are far from speechless. Letting rip a volley of obscenities, they stand up in unison, hold their middle fingers in the direction of the Banik fans and keep them there until the banner is taken down.

It's refreshing to see such an anti-racist stance from the terraces, but surely not all Bohemians fans can be raving leftists? "Of course not," says Mlady. "The Ultras flags and stickers reference the Ramones and smoking culture, but that doesn't mean everyone is a Guardian-reading liberal. Even at Bohemians, there are some people who are more nationalistic, and many fans have no political leaning at all."

By the time Bohemians get a second goal the Banik fans have calmed down a bit, and when the third goes in the Bohemians fans are too busy having fun to care about them (or even notice Banik's late consolation).

When the referee blows the final whistle, the home stand is immediately lit up by a sea of green flares. Backs are slapped, beers are held aloft, and the kangaroo pops up again to do a kind of weird Bohemians boogie.

"So what now?" I ask Mlady. "Round the back for a car park dust-up with the Banik fans?"

"No chance," he smiles. "We'll go to the pub, have a few celebratory beers – and possibly smoke a spliff."