The comedy stylings of Dukla Prague...

The goal that no-one scored in (inevitably the one I was sat nearer to)with (l-r) the top of Hotel Crowne Plaza, a floodlightand the TV tower in the background

Having seen what I have seen tonight, I imagine that when the fixture list for this season was announced, Bohemians' players' eyes saw Dukla Prague away in August and thought thank fuck we don't have to go up there in the winter. Of course, they weren't to know that despite being preceded by more than a week of glorious sunshine and 30 degree C temperatures, by the time the game itself came round, the rain and cold would have come in. Up there, on the side of a mountain with the stadium openly facing over most of Prague (I felt that if someone punted the ball out of the ground, some poor sap of a ball boy would be chasing it as far as Zizkov), it felt like a night in late October.

But I do love the away games. A chance to sniff out some other part of Prague (cos as of yet, I haven't gone to an away game outside the city) and a chance to see some new ground, especially if it is one perched on the side of a hill, with sub zero climates all year round and that exotic foreign feeling you rarely get these days, unless your country is persistently drawn into a group with Azerbaijan. One of the major attractions at Dukla was their scoreboard with their awesome early-90s Nintendo graphics (see pic right, as Bohemians made a substitution)

But I was especially excited to go to Dukla Prague. They are of course famous, among many things, for this song

But also, they are the most successful team in Czechoslovak history though hated by most of the population here. They won the league 11 times, the cup nine times and had many European adventures including beating Manchester United (back in the days when they were a team you could respect) 1-0 at the same ground I went to tonight. They lost the second leg at Old Trafford though.

The hatred stems from the fact that it was originally the Army team and strongly affiliated with Communism. The name Dukla itself comes from a hill in Slovakia which oversaw a major battle in World War Two when the advancing Red Army, aided by many Czech and Slovak soldiers, made significant gains on the Nazis. The name Dukla in the Czech Republic has the same connotation that CSKA has in Russia and Legia has in Poland.

Dukla Prague dominated because they forced the best players to either sign long term contracts or play for the B side in the third or fourth tier.

Of course, once the revolution came, clubs like Sparta were able to get major sponsorship deals and their Communist past meant Dukla were unable to get the same kind of deals. It disintegrated temporarily, then merged with Pribam for a while before finally muscling with Dejvice. According to Wikipedia, two of the key players to have played for Dukla during the 1990s were Pavel Nedved and Karel Rada. I am sure you will have heard of the first and if you haven't heard of the second, you obviously didn't read my last match report as far in as half time.

Anyway, all this preamble is a means of disguising the fact that although I was at the game tonight, I found it very difficult to tell who was who for most of it because the Dukla tribune is far from the pitch, with an athletics track and long jump sand pit inbetween. Nice view though. From my seat I could see the Hotel Crowne Plaza and the TV tower in the distance.

What I am aware of was the following;

* After five minutes, I fully anticipated the game to end 0-0. As has been previously documented, our only two goals this season have come from the opposition and we have looked horrendously inadequate up front.

* So it goes to show how good I am at reading the game, when I tell you Milan Skoda put us 1-0 up after eight minutes...

* Quickly followed by a flowing counter attack, belted into the bottom corner by Jan Moravec after 14 minutes...

* And a third, a 25-yard free kick from the edge of the area, by Adam Lukas after 20 minutes.

Yes, we were all on cloud nine. Bohemians 3-0 up after 20 minutes. My companion, a lifelong Bohemians fan who can remember the really good days (when they were champions in 1982-3 season), the super-sweet days (beating Ipswich 2-0 at home, even if they had lost the first leg 3-0) and the miserable days of more recent history, commented that he hadn't seen such a Bohemians rout for quite a while.

And then, the game went a bit quiet. In fact it was quite dull for the rest of the first half.

And Bohemians clearly came out in the second half thinking the game was won and proceeded to get mullered for the next 20 minutes. Dukla squandered chance after chance. A good save low down by second-choice goalkeeper Jiri Havranek (Snozik got injured in training this week but should be back to face Sokolov next weekend) saw the ball palmed to an oncoming Dukla striker with an open net but an acute angle. He managed to smack the ball against the crossbar.

On 62 minutes came possibly my favourite moment I have ever seen at a live game (fighting with seeing Giggs' first goal for Wales and Earnie scoring for Norwich at Ninian Park). Dukla on the attack, the ball goes loose a Bohemians player is clearly dragged down trying to clear the ball. The prat of a referee gives the freekick to Dukla. It was absolutely inconceivable what he saw to possibly do that.

Dukla's big men pile forward into the box as their number 17 prepares to whip it in. Right at point of contact 17 slips over and knees the ball about three yards. From that point on, Dukla seemed to forget the rules. They gave up possession for a foul throw (I mean seriously, what kind of professional footballer can't take a throw-in?), they took a goal-kick that didn't leave the penalty area and then looked utterly baffled as to why they'd been whistled, and another throw-in spun out of the player's hands and high into the air.

On 75 minutes however, they managed to concoct a proper first - the first goal against Bohemians this season. Though it was scruffy, a few missed headers, the ball eventually fell kindly in the box and the forward hefted it in off the bar.

Final score: Dukla 1 Bohemians 3. And despite having 2,500 fans to follow back to the metro, I followed the ten going to some random car-park and managed to get myself temporarily lost in the wilderness of Prague 6 just as it began to rain.

Luckily, I spotted the looming square tower of the Hotel Crowne Plaza and redirected to find my way back to Dejvicka metro station. Which is on the green line and was packed with green Bohemians shirts, singing and raucously banging drums. I would have loved to see some tourists (Dejvicka is the nearest metro stop to the airport) arrive in the middle of that lot...