I was born in Rakovník in 1991 and — apart from one Prague episode — I never really left. Today I live in Zátiší, right next to the football pitch. Before that I lived… also right next to a football pitch. Coincidence? : )
I played football from the age of four. Legend has it I was kicking a ball before I could speak; witnesses disagree, evidence is missing, the story stays. I started up front — on the wing, in central midfield, at striker — and as the years (and maybe the kilos) piled up, I drifted back through the pitch: holding midfielder, full-back, finally centre-back. Over my career I covered every position except goalkeeper. I don't know if that's the usual path, but there's no changing it now.
At fifteen I played my first friendly for the men's team, at left-back, in a mini-derby against Tatran. My first competitive match came right after: at home against Litvínov, fourth division, last round of the season, five hundred people in the stands, a 1:0 loss. Probably nobody else remembers that game, but I certainly do — it was 2006. Phew, time flies! I spent almost my entire career at SK Rakovník, with one-year stops in Nové Strašecí and Branov, and I caught my last wind in Lubná. The boots are hanging on the nail now and I don't think I'll take them down… but never say never.
The off-pitch line started at Primary School No. 3 in Rakovník and continued at the local Masaryk Business Academy. I enjoyed school — one reason I turned down offers from higher football leagues; school simply came first. After graduating from the economic lyceum I moved on to the logical successor → the Prague University of Economics and Business, Faculty of Informatics and Statistics, Information Systems and Technologies. I spent eight years in Prague: my first bigger IT job was at the Prague airport, then I taught for a while at a private high school, then moved on to proper IT companies, and finally stood on my own feet, freelancing for partners like Shell, Deloitte and Bayer. Along the way I finished an MBA.
Those work experiences came in handy in football too… At SK Rakovník I have been through pretty much everything — from player through kit manager to chairman. I was first elected around thirty; after half a year I resigned, because I disagreed with where the club was heading and had no power to change it. Two years later the club was practically facing extinction because of debt (well, so that's where it was heading…). With a bunch of friends we took it over — and the toughest years of my life began. Fifteen-hour days, debts, creditors we had nothing to pay with. Thanks to sponsors and a lot of great people the club got rid of the debt, we started a cooperation with Tatran Rakovník, and those two years ended up hugely successful: player numbers grew and we won promotion in almost every category, from youth to the men. But the bill came for me as well — I burned out and had to leave football completely for a year, get my health back and learn that I do have a limit somewhere and you cannot run on debt. Not just financially — energy-wise too.
The year of "recovery" passed and an offer flew in: to assist my former coach Barda with the kids. I said yes, and as these things go, suddenly there was nobody else to run the youth side, so I went from assistant straight to head coach. I have been with the U13 boys for a year and a half now and I enjoy it more than anything before. Ever since I was small I wanted to be a teacher… and this combination of football and, well, teaching is probably what I had been waiting for all along. A big share of the joy belongs to a coaching staff many league clubs would envy: Matúš K., Petr "Johny", Tomáš G. and Jana K. Thanks to them too!
And then there are the loves. I have supported Arsenal for over twenty years — blame FIFA 2003, an unnamed friend Martin P. and my soft spot for the letter A. What am I on about? Simply: you are picking a club in a video game with a friend, you see the word Arsenal, a nice kit… and few coincidences have ever given me so much. A club built on loyalty, on the motto Victoria Concordia Crescit, and on not changing managers like socks. Arsenal simply has class. You can see it in Arsenal's most famous captain, Thierry Henry — a great player and an even greater man; I recommend this interview to everyone. My friends picked Chelsea back then, because Čech was in goal and trophies were being won; today they just watch a club built on Russian money, where the manager changes every three months, the squad with him, and their most famous captain slept with his teammate's wife. Yeah — not this way!
The second love is motorsport. From early childhood my parents took me to the Most autodrome; from circuits we got to rallying, and both have stayed with me. I have followed Formula 1 since I was ten, and as soon as I could afford it I started travelling to Grands Prix: Monza, Barcelona, Baku, Bahrain, Qatar, the Hungaroring, the Red Bull Ring. I can tell you first-hand which F1 race to visit — I am just slowly running out of European ones, and the remaining ones hurt the wallet. Ferrari got me in the Schumacher era (after all, everyone in F1 secretly loves Ferrari, they just do not all admit it) — and Charles Leclerc. He won me over with more than speed: he is a guy who criticises himself first, and only then the team or the tyres… Exactly the attitude I want to teach on the pitch. First look inside — could I have done something better, what did I mess up, what did I do well — and only then look for the fault elsewhere. You simply cannot keep hunting for mistakes everywhere else without ever considering that the one making them is, above all, you. And one more soft spot: Aston Martin — no great F1 history, but the Bond films and the British style cannot be unstitched.
One more weakness: ice hockey. I hold a season ticket for Sparta Prague's hockey team, and I quietly root for Karlovy Vary too. Paradoxically, I go to hockey Sparta more than to football Sparta. It has to do with the football environment — but that is a story for another time…
And when I am not busy with work, football or hockey… I build Broomstix — my own online manager game set in a world where sport is played on flying brooms. You can read how it came to be at broomstix.org.
