Supporters have united with former player Petr Svancara to restore the old stadium that witnessed the Czech club’s greatest days but had been left to ruin

“When we came back for the first time, you could have shot a beautiful horror film there.” The task Petr Svancara had given himself seemed overwhelming, even if the 36-year-old captain of Zbrojovka Brno had shown he could achieve most of the things a young man from the Czech Republic’s second city dreamed of.

He had been a much-loved player for the club over 18 years as man and boy across three separate spells; he had scored a spectacular winner against Slavia Prague that no one present has forgotten, running from the halfway line to score; before that, he had stood, knelt, run around the pitch as a ballboy; before that, he had watched the team from the stands of Za Luzankami.

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Those stands, which could hold 50,000, never left Svancara’s mind. By the time he decided to retire, his legs playing out time on loan with FK Pribram, Zbrojovka had long since moved away from the cavernous old terraces and now played at the more compact and considerably more modest Srbska, which could hold no more than 12,550, to declining local interest amid moderate performances. Za Luzankamy (or “Luzanky” as the locals call it), once the biggest stadium in the old Czechoslovakia, had been decommissioned in 2001; what had happened since was enough to break the hearts of those who had crammed inside during the club’s 1970s heyday, when Zbrojovka Brno was among the leading lights of a league that – like many of those from the old Eastern Bloc – brimmed with intensity and competitiveness before the fall of communism.

“The stadium had started to crumble and it was for political reasons,” Svancara says. “It needed reconstruction but nobody would take care of it. The club was moved to Srbska and Luzanky was filled with trees and bushes. Homeless people lived in the stands, and the vegetation that started to take over even became home for some rare species of bird. There was one funny pheasant that we ousted from the stadium when we came back but it kept returning several times – he simply came back home.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Zbrojovka Brno’s emotional return to Za Luzankami

The pheasant had been thinking along the same lines as Svancara. His reconnaissance mission had a purpose: what if he could revive the old stadium, its edifices and its memories, and organise one last game – his farewell match – there? Talk of renovating Za Luzankami had surfaced down the years to little avail, invariably breaking down on political or financial grounds – but could Svancara wield his influence to reunite sections of the club’s support and oversee the project himself?

“Leaving Luzanki divided the fans into two groups – one of which loved Luzanky too much and did not want to go to another stadium,” Svancara says. “That was the case with the older generation in particular. It hurt the identity of the club enormously.

“Some of my friends had talked about organising my farewell at Luzanki for so long that one day I went to look there with a lawnmover and said it was possible. Then, it was important that Brno – the city and the fans – didn’t leave me alone in it.”

The response, aided by assistance from the media that twitched heartstrings to exactly the right degree, was beyond any expectation. Together, through volunteering and online crowdfunding, the supporters of Zbrojovka Brno set about restoring what had once been their pride and joy.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Petr Svancara, the man behind the dream of playing at Za Luzankami again. Photograph: Alamy

“Tens of people came to help at the stadium every day,” he says. “Nobody ever asked me what he would get for it, which is incredible in the Czech Republic. The pitch must have cost around 100,000 crowns (£3,000) and the man made it for us for free. Many people came every Saturday instead of spending weekends with their families, and I think even people from other cities supported us. It captured peoples’ hearts. At first, we thought we would just clean up one part of the stadium – I was thinking that 5,000 fans would come to the game. But later, we saw that the interest was really big.”

The strength of the movement to return Za Luzankami to something approaching its former glories was emphasised after the discovery of a flaw that could have scaled the project down significantly.

“We found that the structure of the stadium was broken in one place – as if the whole stadium was cut in two by a giant crack,” Svancara says. “I said, ‘OK, there’s nothing we can do about it, we’ll have to put a big advertisement on the whole sector with the crack.’ Then I went to play in Austria one weekend and, when I came back, the crack was repaired. The people had taken away all the damaged concrete blocks and put new ones there at their own initiative. It was so beautiful.”

The match was scheduled for 27 June. It would be played between two teams composed largely of former Zbrojovka players – team-mates of Svancara’s from down the years and members of the side whose league title in 1978 was both the club’s and the stadium’s finest hour. The ground had been cleared to hold 23,000 for the occasion; tickets sold out within days and Svancara says that demand comfortably hit 50,000. Eventually an estimated 35,000 crammed inside, while people who could not get in scaled surrounding buildings in order to catch a glimpse of the highly charged scenes below.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest One of the goals at a derelict Za Luzankami, the stadium Zbrojovka Brno were forced to leave behind in 2001.

“It was very emotional for me,” Svancara says. “I had to hide a tear several times – my father played, my son too. After the game, when I waved farewell to the fans, I cried a lot and I am not ashamed of it. On the other hand, I felt proud that we did it. That we proved that when there’s will, there’s a way.

“I was glad that the Zbrojovka legends enjoyed the game, too. They deserved it and I wanted them to be able to play in front of a full Luzanky again. And today, some older men still stop me in the streets and tell me that we brought tears into their eyes even though they haven’t cried for years. They remember the Zbrojovka of 1978 and they thank me for bringing them back that time. I still feel and hear echoes of the positivity but every other question is: ‘What next?’”

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The false dawns might just be over. Plans were announced recently for a £40m overhaul of Za Luzankami, with the stadium rented to the supporters’ organisation led by Svancara – Verime Zbrojovce – in the meantime. Zbrojovka’s youth teams are now training on the relaid pitch and Svancara is pushing hard for the first team to start doing the same, with the prospect of a full-scale reconstruction next summer and an eventual return.

“I think that, when Zbrojovka moves back to Luzanky, it will be a completely different club,” he says. “I don’t want to wear rose-tinted glasses but I think that at Luzanky, Zbrojovka can expect to win the title again. The club would turn in a completely positive direction. Here in Brno, the place is essential. I cannot imagine a football stadium here being anywhere else.”