Inside Polish Sports

• Episode 9: Ball Boys and Striker Girls

  Irish Dave is back with me for our weekly review. You would hope that I will be most excited with our World Cup qualifying wins over Lithuania and Malta(held last night after our Sunday morning recording), but then you remember: It's only Lithuania and Malta...........and we almost dropped points in the first one..............and our 36-year old star striker bailed us out which we will deeply miss when his career is done. Whilst Lewandowski is a Ballon d'Or contender again thanks to his exploits at Barcelona, another Polish striker based in the home of Gaudi might actually have a better chance. Ewa Pajor is averaging a goal per match this season and her national team is going to their first Euros ever in July. Dave will talk about his ideas of further growing the Women's Football boom: Have doubleheaders every week so that we might further prefer the matinee women's match compared to the men's inevitable 0-0 in the evening. After all it's the same format that Tennis uses during its Grand Slams, which brings me neatly to Iga Świątek almost killing the ball boy during her semifinal loss in Indian Wells. In her defense though, almost every famous Tennis player vented out their anger in public at least once. Even Tim Henman, which I found remarkable because he has the most boring demeanour of any player ever. You might not know this but for me the most wonderful time of the year last about four months, because the NHL playoffs start just after our national championship in Ice Hockey had already been decided. I feel like I have the necessity of supporting dethroned champions Unia Oświęcim simply because they are the closest pro sports team to my hometown which makes us the desert of the Polish sporting map. All we have in Wadowice is Kremówka pie and monasteries. However, I would much rather have Poland getting promoted up to the World Championships top flight than club success, because I would once more love to experience what me and Dave saw in Ostrava last year.

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• Episode 8: Wojciech Fibak

  In this historical lookback(no pun intended), we take a look at the man who first made Poles fall in love with Tennis and without whom my own mother wouldn't right now be an Iga Świątek groupie. Wojciech Fibak is a renaissance man in more ways than one, a skillful and fluent player on the court and outside of it, one of Poland's best known art dealers. He was a Grand Slam champion in doubles, a Top 10 player in singles, won 67 career titles in the formats and earned more money than any Polish athlete in the 20th century. And yet, his most famous night was also his most tragic, on the brink of winning the 1976 Masters in Houston his momentum was destroyed, of all people, by Michael Douglas' father Kirk and his wife! The tragicomedic story of that match and more on this Inside Polish Sports.

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• Episode 7: Blaugrana's Sweet 16

  Irish Dave is back with me for our weekly(monthly?) review of the big topics in Polish Sports. Whilst Barcelona are today in mourning following the sudden death of first team doctor Carles Minarro Garcia, they are in by far the best position since Messi left; leading the LaLiga, having gone 16 matches without defeat and last Wednesday Wojciech Szczęsny rolled back the years with a dominant clean sheet vs Benfica in the Champions League Last 16 1st leg. We'll talk both about him and at the very end give flowers to Łukasz Fabiański discussing why Poland always had no shortage of goalkeepers. Robert Lewandowski now has 686 career goals for club(s) and country. It seems that we shouldn't just argue whether he's Poland's all time GOAT(maybe let's think of another animal-related acronym), but whether in the last 15 years only two other footballers has achieved more than him and been more consistent. Poles love their country and athletes, but always complain about it. That's the case with our domestic league, even though two Ekstraklasa clubs have can yet make the Conference League quarterfinals. You have to go back to 1971 for multiple Polish sides to continue in Europe this deep into the season. Poles are also so cynical that whenever a corruption scandal comes along in our Sports, we typically just shrug. That is the case with Polish Olympic Committee boss Radosław Piesiewicz, who is now accused of defrauding close to $3 million through VAT fraud, which is almost $1 million more than the entire cost of Poland's historically dismal Olympic effort in Paris over which he presided. I list off the other major cases surrounding Polish sporting supremos in recent years. And with Poland drawing Great Britain in the Davis Cup qualifiers I will explain how the Davis Cup has changed its format for both its survival and detriment.  

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• Episode 6: Gołota Part 2

  In Part 2 of this story I will talk about the last 15 years of Andrzej Gołota's professional career. There is an consistent thread through that time period, because every time it seemed that he had ran out of road or could not redeem himself, he proved you wrong. Whether it was after losing to Michael Grant and quitting against Mike Tyson, the assault charges in Sopot, being robbed against Chris Byrd and John Ruiz, losing in 53 seconds to Lamon Brewster and getting injured against Ray Austin, Gołota has always found a way out and recovered both his career and personal life. This is why he will always have a place in the hearts of his countrymen. He may be the Foul Pole, but he is also Our Pole.

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• Episode 5: Gołota Part 1

  Hide behind the Foul Poles everyone! Because this is part 1 of a two-part story of Poland's best known pugilist export. The man who when toe to toe, sometimes too literally, with some of the all time great heavyweights. Even despite his flaws, we Poles will always have a special affection for "Andrew". This is Andrzej Gołota, from his Olympic exploits in Seoul, through his first bout with the law and emigration to Chicago to dominating Riddick Bowe twice and being humbled by Lennox Lewis. Part Two of the story(1998-2013) next week.

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