Poland fly their ‘king of fans’ home after Faroe Islands delay

The Poland national team were delayed leaving Faroe Islands after Thursday’s EURO 2024 qualifier win, and when they finally departed on Saturday, they took some stranded Polish fans with them including Andrzej Bobowski, known as “the king of Polish fans“.

Bobowski has attended the last 12 World Cup tournaments but could easily have been stranded and missed Poland’s game with Moldova on Sunday without the intervention of the Polish Football Federation (PZPN).

After Poland beat the Faroe Islands 2-0 they were due to fly back on Friday, but poor weather put paid to their plans.

Their charter flight eventually departed on Saturday, and with a group of fans facing further delays and cancellations, the PZPN invited them to join the team on the flight back to Warsaw.

Bobowski is usually easy to spot at Poland’s games, wearing his king costume complete with crown, but he dressed in everyday clothes for the trip home.

With no direct flights from the Faroe Islands to Poland an already difficult journey for the fans could have turned into a nightmare if not for the PZPN charter flight.

“As always, PZPN book a private charter flight for the team for travel to away matches,” the PZPN press office told Reuters.

“We departed from Faroe Islands at 10:30 local time and we invited around 10 fans to join us on the flight.”

Poland will train at a later time on Saturday and Moldova agreed to change their own scheduled session, after the Polish team’s flight landed in Warsaw after 2pm local time.

For one group of fans at least, as the Polish proverb goes, “After a storm the sun always comes”.