THE HEART OF POLAND: ALEX WEBBER’S ODYSSEY THROUGH A COUNTRY’S FOOTBALL CULTURE

March 14, 2025

“I’ll tell you what—the good that I’ve seen has far outweighed the bad. I love Poland. I really love it. It’s that simple.”

When Alex Webber arrived in Warsaw 25 years ago, the plan was simple: stay for a year, soak up the experience, and move on. Poland, however, had other ideas.

“The moment I came here, I surrendered my life to the city,” he says. Back then, Warsaw was rough around the edges—so much so that foreign workers were given ‘hardship allowances’ just for enduring it. But beneath the peeling paint and brutalist concrete, the city was electric, raw, and intoxicating. Alex was hooked.

Fast forward to today, and the Englishman-turned-Warsaw-lifer has released, The Heart of Poland, a book documenting his years navigating the unpredictable, often chaotic world of Polish football.

This is not a polished coffee table celebration of pristine pitches and club legends—it’s a visceral, muddy, occasionally absurd love letter to the game as it exists in Poland’s furthest-flung corners. And if you’re expecting polished, artsy shots from a pro photographer, think again. “I only got a camera less than a decade ago to take pictures of my dog, Bonnie,” he admits.

His journey into Polish football wasn’t exactly love at first sight. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

“I hated it at first,” Alex says, recalling his early attempts to watch Legia Warsaw, only to be met with eerily silent stands due to Ultra boycotts.

For years, he gave it a wide berth, instead throwing himself into the wild, anything-goes expat scene. But as Warsaw evolved, so did his relationship with the game, leading him on a decade-long odyssey into the heart of Polish football culture—an odyssey that involved 15-hour round trips to nowhere, games that never actually happened, and, on one occasion, escaping a plank-wielding lunatic with a ruptured ACL.

Throughout our time together, Alex talks about the sheer madness of putting the book together, why he’s kept his most jaw-dropping photos locked away in a ‘secret vault,’ and how, despite still speaking only ‘survival Polish,’ he has come to call this country home. Expect stories of snowstorms, hooligans in BBQ attire, and the kind of football experiences that make you truly earn that post-match pint.

WARSAW WAS RAW AND WILD

I arrived in Warsaw with the intention of staying for a year, but little did I know that’s not how the city worked.

The moment I came here, I surrendered my life to the city. Back then, it was so grim and grotty that many firms and embassies gave their foreign employees a ‘hardship allowance.’ But despite its physical decrepitude, the atmosphere was electric—Warsaw was raw and wild, and I got hopelessly hooked.

With that in mind, maybe it’s not a surprise that I stuck around, but it is a little mind-blowing that I’ve got a book out featuring my images of Polish football.

First off, I’m not and never will be a proper photographer—I only got a camera less than a decade ago to take pictures of my dog, Bonnie, growing up. I’ve still got that camera, an entry-level Nikon, and I feel a bit of a berk using it on the touchline when the real pros are lugging equipment bigger than bazookas.

But even more of a surprise to me is that I got into Polish football—I hated it at first. My early flirtations had been catastrophic, with a couple of early trips to Legia coinciding with Ultra bans and boycotts. The thing is, nobody told me that’s why there was zero atmosphere to speak of.

So yeah, basically, for years, I avoided Polish football, preferring instead to be part of the shambolic bedlam that was Warsaw’s expat scene. That’s how I missed the most lawless days of Polish football, but I have no regrets—the Warsaw life back then was just crazy.

BEING GASSED UMPTEEN TIMES

Putting the book together was a bloody nightmare! There were two stages, of course—the first being the actual fieldwork, which meant exploring the darkest corners of Poland and putting in the miles over the course of several seasons.

That, it goes without saying, was the brilliant bit—I’ve made friends for life, discovered extraordinary places, and had scores of unforgettable experiences.

Even the bad times were worth it: 15-hour round trips for games that were called off, being gassed umpteen times, getting stranded in the middle of nowhere on regular occasions, traveling all day only to find out the match was actually the previous day, leaping into taxis and shouting, “DRIVE” while being chased by lunatics—you name it. As always, though, the grim times made the good times taste all the sweeter.

So yeah, that part I couldn’t put a price on—some of the best days of my life came from traveling around Poland in the name of this book.

But then there was the second part—writing the damned thing. I am completely in my publisher’s debt for the patience and faith he showed because I can’t even guess how many deadlines I must have missed—you’d need at least seven hands to count.

When I eventually filed the completed manuscript, I didn’t celebrate—I just breathed a sigh of relief and went to bed. I was mentally shattered. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the magnificent team at Pitch Publishing felt much the same.

MY UNHINGED ENTHUSIASM

I’ve lived in Poland for over half of my life now, so this isn’t just a country anymore—it’s my home.

My dirty little secret is that, in all that time, my Polish language skills have remained limited at best, but I sincerely believe that has been offset by my unhinged enthusiasm for everything else about the nation:

Its people, its sights, its culture, its stories. I think things like that are every bit as important, if not more so, than mastering the language.

Besides, having only rudimentary language skills allows you to view the country as if you were an alien lifeform—you see the best and worst of people and places when you’re linguistically helpless.

And I’ll tell you what—the good that I’ve seen has far outweighed the bad.

I love Poland. I really love it. It’s that simple.

WHEELBARROWS, BRICKS, AND EVEN A JAVELIN AND A PAIR OF FLIP-FLOPS

I ruptured my ACL while escaping a plank-wielding psycho in the middle of a melee, so yeah, with a time machine to hand, I’d give him a wider berth.

The agony was one thing, but then with the subsequent operation and recovery process, the whole debacle put my life on pause for far longer than I could have imagined.

I can just about live with that, but what really vexed me was that I took the best snaps of my life—right in the thick of a 100-bloke free-for-all, with wheelbarrows, bricks, and even a javelin and a pair of flip-flops flying through the air, while haymakers and high kicks crashed all around.

Even when I was on the deck, I carried on firing off the camera—more as a natural shock reaction, I think, rather than some heroic devotion to photography!

But… I have never published the pictures, nor will I. Usually, the hooligans are all masked up and wearing identikit clothes, but this game was the height of summer, and I don’t think either set of fans expected the carnage that came.

Rather than wearing their standard black ninja outfits, everyone looked like they were off for a beachfront BBQ and were simply way too identifiable had I ever made the photos public.

The home team never made it into the book, and the pics remain locked in a secret vault to this day—gutted!

THEY’RE THE ONES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL ALIVE

One of my side rackets is photographing for a leading Ultra page in Poland, so I do describe myself as a storm-chaser. Along with a healthy core of like-minded snappers, I seek out the more volatile games.

Those are the games I live for—they’re the ones that make me feel alive. While complete madness is far rarer now, it’s something that I anticipate and am fully prepped for.

That said, in recent times, Moto Jelcz Oława v Górnik Wałbrzych went a bit more turbo than expected, with the game abandoned with less than 30 minutes on the clock—pure pandemonium in the ground, even though the attendance couldn’t have been more than 800 or so.

Blimey, there was even a mob over from Hungary to partake in the shenanigans.

But if I had to pick something that truly felt like a once-in-a-lifetime match, it would be a crazy blizzard-hit game at GKS Katowice. Here, the mayhem came not from the stands but from the skies.

I’ve never known a match played in conditions like it—it was so bad I strayed onto the pitch during play because the markings were buried under snow.

I remain certain that had I looked harder, I’d have seen a polar bear emerging from the murk. The weather, basically, went batshit crazy, and I still don’t have the faintest clue how the football went ahead.

But I love it when photographing a game really challenges you and makes you work.

You really earn that post-match pint, and in this case, I have rarely been happier to enter the warm embrace of a welcoming bar.

I looked like I had come in from a polar vortex, and when minutes later my mate walked in looking like the Yeti, we both just burst out laughing at the absurdity of what had come before. Nothing else needed to be said.