Opinion Poles

The last Sunday in March was a windy day in Chingford, Essex. It was a Sunday gust that caught out Korona Redbridge in the first minute, as they concede a goal from a corner. Despite drawing level they lost their match in the Essex Sunday Corinthian League Division One to a goal scored from a free-kick. To some onlookers, biased as they may be, this had appeared offside.

- Gianlucca De Paoli

There are nearly a million Polish-born people living in the UK, with a large proportion of them in London. So it is quite surprising that there is only Sunday League side for Poles in the city, namely Korona Redbridge.

The club’s secretary and founder, Wieslaw Gladyszewski-Jasica, is London-born and bred, but his father was a Polish soldier who fought at Dunkirk and Normandy for the Allies. “When I was a kid, I just thought all Polish people were old,” says Wieslaw, such was the lack of new arrivals to London from Poland during the Cold War. The gap between the two waves of migration made England more alien to Poles arriving here in recent years, so the newer arrivals struggled to establish themselves in British life, of which Sunday League football is surely a part.

Francis Torres is the president, having started the club with Wieslaw almost ten years ago after a priest at their church suggested a game. Since then, Korona have grown larger and more competitive. The two founders, along with Wieslaw’s son Adrian, are the only constants in a team who have changed drastically since Korona’s inception in 2006.