"Bandits, Go Home!"

East of the Iron Curtain, competition on the playing field continually gets involved with the passions of politics. Nowhere is the mixture more explosive than in Poland. When a Soviet soccer team turned out at Warsaw's Tenth Anniversary Stadium to take on Poland's national allstars, 100,000 Poles turned out too, intent on settling an old score.

Chagrined by the 7-1 defeat their team suffered last year in Moscow, the Poles were openly hostile to their Big Brothers from across the River Bug; the Poles roared lusty approval whenever one of the local boys tripped, kicked, kneed or otherwise assaulted a Russian. But when a Soviet center-forward named Krasnitsky bulled into the Polish goal tender and flattened him, it was nearly Poznan all over. Stones, lemonade bottles and umbrellas rained onto the field. "Bandits, go home! " screamed the crowd. "Beat the katzap!" roared spectators, using a term roughly translatable as "crass peasants." The Warsaw fans, including a large number of uniformed soldiers, settled down just long enough for the Poles to rifle a penalty shot past the Russian goalie and win the game, 1-0. Then they swarmed onto the field to engage in a time-honored pastime of continental soccer buffs: dismembering the visiting team. Heavy police reinforcements escorted the frightened Russians to their dressing room with limbs intact, then rounded up the more enthusiastic rooters.

Later, reported West Germany's tabloid Bild-Zeitung, six rioters were sent to prison for three-month terms. Scolded War saw's mass-circulation daily, Zycie Warszawy. "This conduct was motivated by vulgar, primitive chauvinism."

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