Beer, Klobása, and the Kangaroos: Prague’s Purest Football Experience

All words and images by Rami Muszyński

I’ve always believed that some cities introduce themselves slowly—softly, even. Prague, though, greets you in full colour from the moment you step into it. The baroque facades, the tenement houses with their ornate shoulders, the river bending like a sigh—everything seems designed to make you pause, breathe, and loosen the knots you didn’t realise you were carrying.

People always talk about Prague’s beauty, its bridges and beer, the gothic skyline that feels like a place the Brothers Grimm might have sketched on a cold night. And all of that is true. But what struck me most, wandering its streets for four days, wasn’t the postcard stuff; it was the lightness of the place. A kind of gentle freedom that slips out from behind the old buildings and follows you around.

And, of course, the beer. Prague doesn’t just drink beer; it lives beer. In the pubs—hazy, loud, low-ceilinged—you feel it immediately: pints arriving in steady streams, conversations loosening, football drifting in and out of the air like a familiar tune. They say Czech people drink more beer than anyone else in the world. After a few nights, I didn’t bother checking the statistics. It just feels true.

Arsenal in the Distance, Football Everywhere

Because Slavia Praha were playing Arsenal in the Champions League, I half-expected the city to be flooded with Londoners in retro kits and European-tour bravado. But I only crossed paths with a couple of groups the entire time. It didn’t matter. Football culture in Prague doesn’t need an English invasion to announce itself.

It’s in the pubs. It’s in the streets. It’s in the murals, the scarves, the flags draped from balconies. And it’s especially in the conversations between old friends drinking light, foamy lager at 11am on a Tuesday—football woven into daily ritual the way some cities use coffee or cigarettes or gossip.

But my reason for coming was specific: Bohemians 1905 vs. Mladá Boleslav at the legendary (and delightfully stubborn) Stadion Ďolíček.

Dolíček: A Stadium With Breath and Bones

There are football grounds you visit, and then there are football grounds you feel. Dolíček belongs to the latter.

Built in 1932, modernised twice, still lopsided in ways that make architects twitch—this place is old, but it has soul. Three stands: the main one, the visitors’ section, and the one that really matters, the beating heart of the whole thing—the ultras stand.

Even before entering, you can sense it. Bohemians fans—Klokani, the kangaroos—move with a kind of ritual familiarity. They greet each other like cousins at a holiday gathering. They hold their club close, not like a hobby but like heritage. You don’t support Bohemians; you inherit Bohemians.

Dolíček isn’t just a football stadium. It’s a sanctuary. Every corner tells you someone has loved this place deeply.

The Ultras: Where the Magic Lives

If you ever find yourself at a Bohemians match, don’t hesitate: go to the ultras stand. It’s football distilled to its purest form. Not polished, not packaged, not carefully branded for global broadcast. Just pure, uncut devotion.

The noise hits you first—a wall of singing, chanting, roaring support. Then the colour. Then the movement. It’s chaotic, beautiful, communal. The kind of stand where you find yourself singing songs you don’t know, in a language you barely understand, with people who feel like old friends by halftime.

And then there’s the beer—everywhere. Steins raised, shared, spilled, celebrated. And the klobása—a smoky sausage that somehow tastes even better when the match gets tense. Football cuisine at its finest.

Why Bohemians Feels Different

This wasn’t my first time with Czech football. Far from it—this was my sixth visit. Each one has been special, but Bohemians 1905 Praha was on another level entirely.

There was something magical about it—a reminder of what football is supposed to be. Not corporate. Not sanitised. Not smoothed out for international sponsorships. Just community. Just atmosphere. Just people gathering around something they love.

A club that knows what it is. A stadium that creaks in all the right places. A fanbase that sings like it’s defending something sacred.

Walking out of Dolíček into the Prague night, full of beer and klobása and that unmistakable post-football glow, I realised something:

As beautiful as Prague is in the daylight—its spires, its river, its romantic soft focus—it might be even better under the floodlights of a club that feels more like family.