SLOVAKIA

DAC 1904 are a football club that have fascinated us for some time. They are in the sleepy southern Slovak town of Dunajská, where the vast majority of the inhabitants are ethnic Hungarians whose first language is Hungarian.

They - and other clubs in regions bordering Hungary - even benefited from funding from Viktor Orbán’s government when he was still the country’s Prime Minister - a strategy that he hoped would curry favour among ethnic Hungarians living abroad who would apply for citizenship and vote for him in elections.

Unsurprisingly, it was the most politically charged football match we have ever been to. A banner reading ‘Identity is not provocation’ in both Slovak and Hungarian was presented before kick-off - but what happened next suggested otherwise.

A singer came onto the pitch to sing the Nélküled, which for many people serves as a cultural and political anthem symbolising Hungarian unity, while away fans in the Slovan end let off red, blue and white flares in the colours of the Slovak flag.

In the end Slovan ran out comfortable 3-0 winners - but the match definitely stuck in our memory much more for what happened off the pitch than what happened on it.