Two Prague “S”
Prague is the site of many sport events, national stadiums and teams. Every Czech knows the two most famous football clubs Sparta Prague and Slavia Prague. It is always a festival for the Czech nation when these two rivals play the match.
Sparta was founded in 1893 and in 1906 played in their typical dark red jerseys for the first time. Club symbols: blue, red and yellow colours were the typical colours from the beginning. Now it is maroon colour and the big S. The name Sparta was inspired by the fighting spirit and courage of the people from the ancient city of Sparta.
Slavia was founded in 1892 and from the very beginning it was the elite Czech club. Currently there are some economic problems. Their symbols are: white colour – the symbol of fair play and olympic idea, red colour – the symbol of heart, red star – the symbol of hope and good mind. The fact that the jersey is half white and half red should symbolize the dichotomy of life.
First time when Sparta and Slavia met on the football pitch Císařská louka was on 29. 3. 1896. Sparta won 1:0. The club Slavia had more money and their own football stadium on Letná while Sparta was poorer and had no stadium. But what is strange it is the fact that Sparta always defeated Slavia. Later Sparta moved to a big new stadium on Bubeneč so it became the equivalent rival. Supporters of Sparta were mostly working-men and journeymen so Sparta were considered more democratic and people’s club. Slavie had supporters from the “brain power”, the wealthier people.
Currently supporters are not divided according to money but mostly according to tradition in their family. Sparta has their new large modern stadium on Letná. It began to be reconstructed in 1994, now it has places for almost 21 000 onlookers and got the new name – Toyota Arena. Slavia will have the new large modern stadium as well. The old stadium Eden in Prague 10, city district of Vrsovice, has being reconstructed since October 2006. Eden has capacity of 21,000 seats and should be built by March 2008. All Slavia supporters are looking forward to the first match.
Informations about these clubs are on their official websites: http://www.sparta.cz/ and http://www.slavia.cz/ . If someone would like to know some more informations about history of these clubs or some famous players look at the websites http://www.wikipedia.org/.