11-20-2019, 02:06 PM
By Steve Madeley 7h ago 6
It is still early evening in Trnava, 30 miles north-east of Bratislava in Slovakia, but Igor Balis is not letting his guests take things steadily.
Balis spots some empty glasses, leaps up from his seat and pours another round of homemade Borovicka, a traditional spirit made from juniper berries that tastes similar to gin.
At regular intervals throughout the evening, Balis proposes a West Brom-themed toast, complete with an obligatory “boing, boing”. He poses for photographs, signs pictures and shirts and then, after much argument and objection from his guests, insists on picking up the restaurant bill for the entire 14-strong group which has travelled from England to spend four hours in his company.
What makes the scene all the more remarkable is that, until this point, Balis has been the most reluctant of Albion heroes. Since he left The Hawthorns in 2003, he has declined several invitations to return to the club where he is lauded for one pivotal moment in Albion history a year earlier.
“I want to go but I will need someone to translate,” he tells The Athletic. “I will come but I will need some help. It is hard for me because I don’t know English.
“I never learned English when I was young because everyone in Slovakia learned Russian. I wanted to talk to the fans all the time when I was there but I didn’t speak English and maybe the fans were thinking something bad about me because I never answered.
“I really like all the fans and appreciate all the attention but I would want to speak a little bit more to every one of them.”
Balis’s English is patchy. He conducts this interview with the help of an English-speaking friend, an employee of Spartak Trnava, his hometown club, and, while he appears to understand most of the questions in English, he is uncomfortable attempting the answers.
He is wrong, however, if he believes fans would care one jot.
With one sure, crisp contact with his right foot at Valley Parade in 2002, Balis achieved Albion immortality and rendered such trifling concerns as a language barrier immaterial.
Denis and Boris, Balis’s two sons, speak optimistically of persuading their father to make his long-awaited return before the end of this season. They have already convinced their father to be here in Trnava, despite his self-consciousness.
“Dad is scared that he doesn’t speak English, but he does,” smiles Boris.
Balis senior speaks enough words of English to delight his guests from Birmingham and the Black Country and, when he falters, his sons, his friend and his wife, Adriana, are on hand to help.
The Balis family: Boris (back, left), his girlfriend Martina (centre), Adriana (right), with Denis (front, left) and Igor (Photo: Norman Bartlam)
In a reflective moment at the station on the way back to their base in Bratislava, one of the group confides that it had felt like one of the greatest evenings of his life.
It was the culmination of around a year of planning, mainly by Dean Walton, a well-travelled Albion fan who specialises in tracking down distant Hawthorns legends. He has discovered Andy Hunt in a jungle house in Belize, drunk the night away with Willie Johnston and Derek Statham in Kirkcaldy and Spain respectively, and enjoyed a drink with Zoltan Gera in Budapest.
Yet Balis proved one of his most challenging assignments due to his famous nerves about the quality of his English.
In discussions via Facebook, Balis agreed to meet. When his son Denis got involved, things became easier.
Initially, four fans were due to make the trip. When word spread of the plan, that number rose quickly into the teens, such is the pulling power of the hero of Bradford.
“I really miss all the fans because it’s really different from Slovakian fans,” says Balis. “I remember one game when we played Liverpool and we lost 6-0 and the fans stood up and clapped. Here, they would throw rocks! I really appreciate that and I will never forget it.
“People saw that Liverpool were the better team and played the better game. Here, you lose and everyone is talking trash to you and a lot of people wouldn’t come to the next game.”
For those unfamiliar with Balis’s legend, it boils down to one iconic, seminal moment in the history of West Bromwich Albion.
He was a steady, reliable right-back signed by Gary Megson in December 2000 after being spotted playing for Slovakia by Frank Burrows, Megson’s trusted right-hand man.
In 75 appearances, Balis rarely let Albion down and rarely stood out but when his moment came to shine, he booked his place in Hawthorns folklore.
It was April 13, 2002, and the penultimate game of the Division One season was heading for a goalless draw. Then, Bob Taylor was caught just below the left knee by a clumsy Andy Myers tackle, the striker hit the floor and Mike Dean, the referee, awarded a penalty in stoppage time.
Victory at Valley Parade would take West Brom four points clear of rivals Wolves, who were due to play Wimbledon 24 hours later, in the race for the second promotion spot behind runaway leaders Manchester City.
A penalty with almost the final kick of the game became a pivotal moment in Albion history. Oh, and they had missed eight of their previous 11 spot-kicks!
Step forward Balis, who had got himself on penalty duties by telling Megson he was his country’s regular taker. That was not true.
“I told him that I did but I never took any!” he grins. “I had taken maybe two or three in my whole career.
“It was after a game six weeks before, he asked me if I wanted to take the penalties and I said, ‘Yes, why not?’
“I wasn’t considered before. It was actually three months that we didn’t have a penalty before the Bradford game. They were a lot of missed penalties.
“But it would have been slightly different if the score was 3-0! I did not expect that it would be the second-last game of the season in that situation!”
Balis’s lengthy wait was extended a little longer as Taylor received extensive treatment. It was not the mental preparation he would have wanted, so what thoughts flashed through his mind?
“You don’t want to know!” he laughs. He is assured that we do.
“I knew, and I also knew it would be very, very bad if I missed,” he adds. “I would have been home a year earlier!
“If you had measured my blood pressure, it would have blown the instruments. I could see all of the faces behind the goal, of fans holding their heads because we had missed so many penalties. They were really scared!”
Some of those scared faces look a good deal happier now as they break bread with the man whose right boot gave them such joy 17 years ago.
That strain is still a problem for Balis, though. After leaving an administrative role with Spartak Trnava three years ago, he now earns his living as a driver for a big company in the town, behind the wheel of a minibus ferrying workers to and from assignments. He has been signed off work by his doctor for a few weeks because of high blood pressure.
(Photo: Norman Bartlam)
“One thing I got from my family is high blood pressure,” he says. “Most people inherit money but I got high blood pressure! That’s why I’m not working at the moment, but it is not too bad.”
It is a problem he has managed throughout his life but, oddly, one that eased when he moved to the Midlands.
“When I came to England, my blood pressure dropped because of the change of scenery and everything,” he recalls. “That was a different thing to get used to.
“It was very difficult for the kids at the beginning because I just dropped them in the school and they had to be on their own because they didn’t speak English. At first, they were really upset but when we were leaving, they wanted to stay. They didn’t want to come back here.
“They really liked it because their school there was different to the school here. Everyone here learns too much. They take a load of books every day to school.
“The only thing they were taking to school (in England) every day was the food because the books were already at school. They were really popular there with the kids and they wanted to stay.”
Improved health was just the start of Balis’s love affair with Albion.
He spent three months living from a suitcase in the Moathouse Hotel near The Hawthorns, getting lifts to training with captain Derek McInnes or walking the mile or so to the stadium to meet his team-mates. “It was pre-training,” he says.
Eventually, he was joined by wife Adriana and their boys and they moved to a house in Cottesmore Close, an address with famous Albion connections. Legendary striker Jeff Astle lived in the same street for most of his time at The Hawthorns, and it became the base from which Denis and Boris began to adjust to life away from home and a new school, Hollyhedge Primary.
“At the start, it was very hard for us because nobody in our family spoke English,” recalls Denis, who was nine years old at the time. “After one year, it was better. We started to play football. I played for Charlemont for two years and we made friends in school and in football, so it was better.”
Boris, who moved at the age of seven, adds: “I remember the first days, it was quite hard but it got easier when we started to go to school and make friends and both of us started to play football.
“I played for Bustleholme. It was little football, five-a-side, but it was good football.
“We were the first Slovakian kids in the school. There had been Polish and Czech but not Slovakian.”
Despite never returning to the Midlands since their departure, the family have been visited by the Bakers, whose sons, Howard and Callam, became friends with Denis and Boris through football. And, as they have matured and begun their own careers as semi-professional footballers, they have come to appreciate the esteem in which their father is held more than 1,000 miles away.
“As we got older, we realised it,” says Boris, “and we watched the video on YouTube.
“When the penalty happened, we were sitting at home in Cottesmore Close and we were listening to the radio. Then dad came home and he said it was going crazy!
(Photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)
“Now, after 17 years, we are realising what it means to West Bromwich Albion fans to play in the Premier League.”
A week on from Balis’s strike in Yorkshire, Albion faced Crystal Palace at The Hawthorns knowing their fate was in their own hands.
They won 2-0 with goals from two more heroes, Darren Moore and Taylor, but not before Megson had delivered a now famous motivational masterstroke in the build-up. The West Brom boss invited his players’ relatives into the dressing room to ease nerves and remind them who all their efforts were for.
“Every player’s family was there before the game,” says Boris. “I remember our grandma was there — my mum’s mum. She came to England for a few weeks, so the whole family was at the match.
“It was a big day for West Bromwich. For us, it is something big because in Slovakia you don’t have that many fans on the pitch!
“The next year in the Premier League, we saw David Beckham and all those players. It was fantastic, especially at The Hawthorns.
“We want to see it again so hopefully, we will go back. We want to come, maybe at the end of this year. But we hope West Bromwich will be promoted to the Premier League (again).”
It is clear that memories of that 2001-02 season are both vivid and happy for Balis and his family.
There was in infamous ‘Battle of Bramall Lane’ in which, as all hell broke loose, Igor remained typically low-key.
“It was the first time I had experienced something like that,” he says. “I actually didn’t know the rule that the game could be abandoned if more than four or five players were injured or sent off.
“But I don’t think they got injured. They acted like they were injured because they wanted the game to be abandoned!”
And there was the unlikely reeling in of their richer, more star-studded neighbours Wolves, whose hopes were all but killed off by that penalty at Valley Parade.
“We played great at that time and we did everything that our coach wanted us to do,” says Balis. “We wanted to go to the Premier League but the gap was really big.
“So, at the time, you want to win every game but you don’t really have your hopes high that you can catch a team that are so far above you. But they stopped playing because they lost a couple of games and we started winning, and it was also about luck.”
Balis’s luck changed quickly, however, after his decisive role in ending Albion’s decade-and-a-half exile from the top division.
He lost his place in the Slovakia national team and consequently his work permit. Albion were ready to make a case to have it extended when Balis was struck down by tinnitus, a condition that affected his hearing and, crucially, his balance.
“I still have it and it will never go away,” he says. “I just have to learn to live with it.”
The family returned to Slovakia but, at the age of 33, Balis’s career was winding down and the baton was passed to his sons.
Both played for Spartak Trnava, the club where their father had spent a decade having grown up in the region, but the burden of a famous name took its toll.
Both still play semi-professionally across the border in Austria. Denis, aged 27, is a defender-cum-midfielder for Hausleiten and Boris, 25, a winger for Wilhelmsburg. Denis earns his living as a builder and Boris works in a sports shop.
“After every match for myself and Boris, we would sit down at home and dad would say, ‘You did this bad, you did this good’,” says Denis. “We played for two years together in the same team at Trnava and my dad came to every game and told us ‘This is good’ or ‘This is better’.
“He tried to help us but he never said, ‘You must play football’. He always said, ‘If you like it, play, if not, don’t’.
“Boris had two operations on his knee and I had three, and he always told us, ‘If you want to stop, your health comes first’.
“At Sparta Trnava it was hard because they were watching us and they wanted us to be like Dad because Dad was the best player from Trnava, or at least in the top 10.
“They were watching us when we were 10, 11 or 12, saying, ‘They are Igor Balis’s sons, they must be the best’. If we played badly in one game, they would say, ‘Ah, Igor Balis’s son isn’t good’.
“I played two games for the first team and Boris played about 12 but then we got injured.”
Life is good for the Balis clan. Igor, despite his blood pressure problems, cuts a happy figure and delights in the continued emergence of his nation from the communist era in which he was raised.
We meet a day after the 30th anniversary of the ‘Gentle Revolution’ which brought an end to communist rule and led ultimately to the separation of Slovakia from the new Czech Republic.
“Since then, Slovakia has only gone up,” says Balis. “It is not as good as in the Czech Republic. They are a little ahead of us but we have everything here.
“I wouldn’t change anything. We are doing good. I have everything I need — my kids, my family and my health. That is all I need.
“Of course I miss it because it is everything I always wanted to do, but it’s not like I’m without football. My kids play football and I always go to see them, and I also play for the Old Boys’ teams because I am now old! I am never without football. I go to games.”
(Photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)
There is, however, one sore that nags away at Balis and, more obviously, at his family.
For a man who represented his country 41 times and played in one of the world’s biggest leagues, the recognition from the public has died down more quickly in his homeland than in the Midlands.
“I still have a lot of interviews,” he says. “They are always calling from betting companies to get tips for games! But it is kind of different to in England. In England, you appreciate the older players. You really like them. They are kind of forgotten here. It’s a shame.”
Boris and Denis are more forthright.
“In Slovakia, it is different,” says Denis. “They know players when they are stars but at the end of playing football, they know him for one or two years and then he is forgotten.
“I don’t know why. It’s not like in England. People in England remember our dad still, after 17 years, and he wasn’t an English player.
“He was captain of Slovakia and people remember him but he has to buy tickets for football games. He never gets free tickets.”
Boris adds: “He played for Trnava for 10 or 15 years, he was captain, he was a trainer in Trnava, but now, nothing. It is like it for all the players.
“It is different in Slovakia; even in the national games, he doesn’t have tickets, nothing.”
In fact, Balis had to cough up for the 11 tickets he acquired for some of the Albion fans for Tuesday night’s European Championship qualifier between Slovakia and Azerbaijan in Trnava.
The fans reimbursed the family and Boris was due to meet them for a pre-match beer before attending the game. Igor and Denis decided against attending. They did not rate their country’s chances of qualification.
The Balis boys’ disaffection with Slovakian football is outweighed, however, by their pride in the old man.
“Not too many players from Slovakia played in the Premier League and our dad went to England when he was 30,” says Denis. He was too old for the Premier League but he played there for three years.
“He didn’t change. When he went to England, he was a normal guy and when he came back, he was still a normal guy.”
The lack of adulation in Trnava is in stark contrast to the atmosphere in the restaurant where, from the comfortable sofa in a corridor where Balis conducts his interview, he can hear the occasional sound of chants from Albion fans — “Igor, Igor, Igor” ringing out as the Borovicka flows.
It is impossible to extract a negative thought from Balis on Albion. He even smiles at a memory of a tongue-in-cheek Megson calling him a “Slovakian bastard”.
“My wife would have stayed there because she still likes all the architecture and everything in England,” he says.
“It’s something I will remember for the rest of my life and I would remember it even if I had missed it (the penalty) — but for different reasons.
“I learned in England what it means to be a professional football player because it is slightly different here. I had to learn how to behave there because everything about football there is far, far from how it is here. It is fantastic and it is my best memories from my career.
“And the fans are fantastic. The stadiums are always full. We go to church, you go to the stadium!”
It has been an afternoon and early evening planned painstakingly by Balis and his family. The restaurant has been booked, the translator sourced and the train times researched and passed on.
Denis has met the group from the train and Igor has organised an impromptu tour of the Anton Malatinsky Stadium, Trnava’s impressive new football venue.
But a few hours later, with interviews complete, goodbyes, final toasts drunk and bill paid, it is time for the fans to depart.
One member of the group, still uncomfortable with Balis picking up the tab, runs to the bar and purchases a bottle of his favourite white wine as a thank-you gift. Flowers are arranged the next day to be delivered to Adriana at home.
Denis and Boris take their leave but Igor and Adriana insist on accompanying the group on the 15-minute walk to Trnava train station.
There are hugs and kisses and a hasty video call to an exiled Albion fan in Australia, who does not mind being woken in the night to chat to one of his heroes.
And then Igor and Adriana are gone and the fans are on their way back to Bratislava to continue their trip, in which they plan to meet Paul Scharner in Vienna and Jan Kozak, another Slovak who made a handful of appearances, at Slovan Bratislava’s training ground.
Their meeting with Balis has been brief but unforgettable and, they hope, the first of many.
As their train pulls into Bratislava, their mobile phones light up in unison to a message, on the trip’s WhatsApp group, from Denis Balis.
“We want to thank you all that you visit us,” it reads. “It was a really good day, to talk with you all about beautiful memories.
“I hope we will see you next time in West Brom and it will be soon.”
It is still early evening in Trnava, 30 miles north-east of Bratislava in Slovakia, but Igor Balis is not letting his guests take things steadily.
Balis spots some empty glasses, leaps up from his seat and pours another round of homemade Borovicka, a traditional spirit made from juniper berries that tastes similar to gin.
At regular intervals throughout the evening, Balis proposes a West Brom-themed toast, complete with an obligatory “boing, boing”. He poses for photographs, signs pictures and shirts and then, after much argument and objection from his guests, insists on picking up the restaurant bill for the entire 14-strong group which has travelled from England to spend four hours in his company.
What makes the scene all the more remarkable is that, until this point, Balis has been the most reluctant of Albion heroes. Since he left The Hawthorns in 2003, he has declined several invitations to return to the club where he is lauded for one pivotal moment in Albion history a year earlier.
“I want to go but I will need someone to translate,” he tells The Athletic. “I will come but I will need some help. It is hard for me because I don’t know English.
“I never learned English when I was young because everyone in Slovakia learned Russian. I wanted to talk to the fans all the time when I was there but I didn’t speak English and maybe the fans were thinking something bad about me because I never answered.
“I really like all the fans and appreciate all the attention but I would want to speak a little bit more to every one of them.”
Balis’s English is patchy. He conducts this interview with the help of an English-speaking friend, an employee of Spartak Trnava, his hometown club, and, while he appears to understand most of the questions in English, he is uncomfortable attempting the answers.
He is wrong, however, if he believes fans would care one jot.
With one sure, crisp contact with his right foot at Valley Parade in 2002, Balis achieved Albion immortality and rendered such trifling concerns as a language barrier immaterial.
Denis and Boris, Balis’s two sons, speak optimistically of persuading their father to make his long-awaited return before the end of this season. They have already convinced their father to be here in Trnava, despite his self-consciousness.
“Dad is scared that he doesn’t speak English, but he does,” smiles Boris.
Balis senior speaks enough words of English to delight his guests from Birmingham and the Black Country and, when he falters, his sons, his friend and his wife, Adriana, are on hand to help.
The Balis family: Boris (back, left), his girlfriend Martina (centre), Adriana (right), with Denis (front, left) and Igor (Photo: Norman Bartlam)
In a reflective moment at the station on the way back to their base in Bratislava, one of the group confides that it had felt like one of the greatest evenings of his life.
It was the culmination of around a year of planning, mainly by Dean Walton, a well-travelled Albion fan who specialises in tracking down distant Hawthorns legends. He has discovered Andy Hunt in a jungle house in Belize, drunk the night away with Willie Johnston and Derek Statham in Kirkcaldy and Spain respectively, and enjoyed a drink with Zoltan Gera in Budapest.
Yet Balis proved one of his most challenging assignments due to his famous nerves about the quality of his English.
In discussions via Facebook, Balis agreed to meet. When his son Denis got involved, things became easier.
Initially, four fans were due to make the trip. When word spread of the plan, that number rose quickly into the teens, such is the pulling power of the hero of Bradford.
“I really miss all the fans because it’s really different from Slovakian fans,” says Balis. “I remember one game when we played Liverpool and we lost 6-0 and the fans stood up and clapped. Here, they would throw rocks! I really appreciate that and I will never forget it.
“People saw that Liverpool were the better team and played the better game. Here, you lose and everyone is talking trash to you and a lot of people wouldn’t come to the next game.”
For those unfamiliar with Balis’s legend, it boils down to one iconic, seminal moment in the history of West Bromwich Albion.
He was a steady, reliable right-back signed by Gary Megson in December 2000 after being spotted playing for Slovakia by Frank Burrows, Megson’s trusted right-hand man.
In 75 appearances, Balis rarely let Albion down and rarely stood out but when his moment came to shine, he booked his place in Hawthorns folklore.
It was April 13, 2002, and the penultimate game of the Division One season was heading for a goalless draw. Then, Bob Taylor was caught just below the left knee by a clumsy Andy Myers tackle, the striker hit the floor and Mike Dean, the referee, awarded a penalty in stoppage time.
Victory at Valley Parade would take West Brom four points clear of rivals Wolves, who were due to play Wimbledon 24 hours later, in the race for the second promotion spot behind runaway leaders Manchester City.
A penalty with almost the final kick of the game became a pivotal moment in Albion history. Oh, and they had missed eight of their previous 11 spot-kicks!
Step forward Balis, who had got himself on penalty duties by telling Megson he was his country’s regular taker. That was not true.
“I told him that I did but I never took any!” he grins. “I had taken maybe two or three in my whole career.
“It was after a game six weeks before, he asked me if I wanted to take the penalties and I said, ‘Yes, why not?’
“I wasn’t considered before. It was actually three months that we didn’t have a penalty before the Bradford game. They were a lot of missed penalties.
“But it would have been slightly different if the score was 3-0! I did not expect that it would be the second-last game of the season in that situation!”
Balis’s lengthy wait was extended a little longer as Taylor received extensive treatment. It was not the mental preparation he would have wanted, so what thoughts flashed through his mind?
“You don’t want to know!” he laughs. He is assured that we do.
“I knew, and I also knew it would be very, very bad if I missed,” he adds. “I would have been home a year earlier!
“If you had measured my blood pressure, it would have blown the instruments. I could see all of the faces behind the goal, of fans holding their heads because we had missed so many penalties. They were really scared!”
Some of those scared faces look a good deal happier now as they break bread with the man whose right boot gave them such joy 17 years ago.
That strain is still a problem for Balis, though. After leaving an administrative role with Spartak Trnava three years ago, he now earns his living as a driver for a big company in the town, behind the wheel of a minibus ferrying workers to and from assignments. He has been signed off work by his doctor for a few weeks because of high blood pressure.
(Photo: Norman Bartlam)
“One thing I got from my family is high blood pressure,” he says. “Most people inherit money but I got high blood pressure! That’s why I’m not working at the moment, but it is not too bad.”
It is a problem he has managed throughout his life but, oddly, one that eased when he moved to the Midlands.
“When I came to England, my blood pressure dropped because of the change of scenery and everything,” he recalls. “That was a different thing to get used to.
“It was very difficult for the kids at the beginning because I just dropped them in the school and they had to be on their own because they didn’t speak English. At first, they were really upset but when we were leaving, they wanted to stay. They didn’t want to come back here.
“They really liked it because their school there was different to the school here. Everyone here learns too much. They take a load of books every day to school.
“The only thing they were taking to school (in England) every day was the food because the books were already at school. They were really popular there with the kids and they wanted to stay.”
Improved health was just the start of Balis’s love affair with Albion.
He spent three months living from a suitcase in the Moathouse Hotel near The Hawthorns, getting lifts to training with captain Derek McInnes or walking the mile or so to the stadium to meet his team-mates. “It was pre-training,” he says.
Eventually, he was joined by wife Adriana and their boys and they moved to a house in Cottesmore Close, an address with famous Albion connections. Legendary striker Jeff Astle lived in the same street for most of his time at The Hawthorns, and it became the base from which Denis and Boris began to adjust to life away from home and a new school, Hollyhedge Primary.
“At the start, it was very hard for us because nobody in our family spoke English,” recalls Denis, who was nine years old at the time. “After one year, it was better. We started to play football. I played for Charlemont for two years and we made friends in school and in football, so it was better.”
Boris, who moved at the age of seven, adds: “I remember the first days, it was quite hard but it got easier when we started to go to school and make friends and both of us started to play football.
“I played for Bustleholme. It was little football, five-a-side, but it was good football.
“We were the first Slovakian kids in the school. There had been Polish and Czech but not Slovakian.”
Despite never returning to the Midlands since their departure, the family have been visited by the Bakers, whose sons, Howard and Callam, became friends with Denis and Boris through football. And, as they have matured and begun their own careers as semi-professional footballers, they have come to appreciate the esteem in which their father is held more than 1,000 miles away.
“As we got older, we realised it,” says Boris, “and we watched the video on YouTube.
“When the penalty happened, we were sitting at home in Cottesmore Close and we were listening to the radio. Then dad came home and he said it was going crazy!
(Photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)
“Now, after 17 years, we are realising what it means to West Bromwich Albion fans to play in the Premier League.”
A week on from Balis’s strike in Yorkshire, Albion faced Crystal Palace at The Hawthorns knowing their fate was in their own hands.
They won 2-0 with goals from two more heroes, Darren Moore and Taylor, but not before Megson had delivered a now famous motivational masterstroke in the build-up. The West Brom boss invited his players’ relatives into the dressing room to ease nerves and remind them who all their efforts were for.
“Every player’s family was there before the game,” says Boris. “I remember our grandma was there — my mum’s mum. She came to England for a few weeks, so the whole family was at the match.
“It was a big day for West Bromwich. For us, it is something big because in Slovakia you don’t have that many fans on the pitch!
“The next year in the Premier League, we saw David Beckham and all those players. It was fantastic, especially at The Hawthorns.
“We want to see it again so hopefully, we will go back. We want to come, maybe at the end of this year. But we hope West Bromwich will be promoted to the Premier League (again).”
It is clear that memories of that 2001-02 season are both vivid and happy for Balis and his family.
There was in infamous ‘Battle of Bramall Lane’ in which, as all hell broke loose, Igor remained typically low-key.
“It was the first time I had experienced something like that,” he says. “I actually didn’t know the rule that the game could be abandoned if more than four or five players were injured or sent off.
“But I don’t think they got injured. They acted like they were injured because they wanted the game to be abandoned!”
And there was the unlikely reeling in of their richer, more star-studded neighbours Wolves, whose hopes were all but killed off by that penalty at Valley Parade.
“We played great at that time and we did everything that our coach wanted us to do,” says Balis. “We wanted to go to the Premier League but the gap was really big.
“So, at the time, you want to win every game but you don’t really have your hopes high that you can catch a team that are so far above you. But they stopped playing because they lost a couple of games and we started winning, and it was also about luck.”
Balis’s luck changed quickly, however, after his decisive role in ending Albion’s decade-and-a-half exile from the top division.
He lost his place in the Slovakia national team and consequently his work permit. Albion were ready to make a case to have it extended when Balis was struck down by tinnitus, a condition that affected his hearing and, crucially, his balance.
“I still have it and it will never go away,” he says. “I just have to learn to live with it.”
The family returned to Slovakia but, at the age of 33, Balis’s career was winding down and the baton was passed to his sons.
Both played for Spartak Trnava, the club where their father had spent a decade having grown up in the region, but the burden of a famous name took its toll.
Both still play semi-professionally across the border in Austria. Denis, aged 27, is a defender-cum-midfielder for Hausleiten and Boris, 25, a winger for Wilhelmsburg. Denis earns his living as a builder and Boris works in a sports shop.
“After every match for myself and Boris, we would sit down at home and dad would say, ‘You did this bad, you did this good’,” says Denis. “We played for two years together in the same team at Trnava and my dad came to every game and told us ‘This is good’ or ‘This is better’.
“He tried to help us but he never said, ‘You must play football’. He always said, ‘If you like it, play, if not, don’t’.
“Boris had two operations on his knee and I had three, and he always told us, ‘If you want to stop, your health comes first’.
“At Sparta Trnava it was hard because they were watching us and they wanted us to be like Dad because Dad was the best player from Trnava, or at least in the top 10.
“They were watching us when we were 10, 11 or 12, saying, ‘They are Igor Balis’s sons, they must be the best’. If we played badly in one game, they would say, ‘Ah, Igor Balis’s son isn’t good’.
“I played two games for the first team and Boris played about 12 but then we got injured.”
Life is good for the Balis clan. Igor, despite his blood pressure problems, cuts a happy figure and delights in the continued emergence of his nation from the communist era in which he was raised.
We meet a day after the 30th anniversary of the ‘Gentle Revolution’ which brought an end to communist rule and led ultimately to the separation of Slovakia from the new Czech Republic.
“Since then, Slovakia has only gone up,” says Balis. “It is not as good as in the Czech Republic. They are a little ahead of us but we have everything here.
“I wouldn’t change anything. We are doing good. I have everything I need — my kids, my family and my health. That is all I need.
“Of course I miss it because it is everything I always wanted to do, but it’s not like I’m without football. My kids play football and I always go to see them, and I also play for the Old Boys’ teams because I am now old! I am never without football. I go to games.”
(Photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)
There is, however, one sore that nags away at Balis and, more obviously, at his family.
For a man who represented his country 41 times and played in one of the world’s biggest leagues, the recognition from the public has died down more quickly in his homeland than in the Midlands.
“I still have a lot of interviews,” he says. “They are always calling from betting companies to get tips for games! But it is kind of different to in England. In England, you appreciate the older players. You really like them. They are kind of forgotten here. It’s a shame.”
Boris and Denis are more forthright.
“In Slovakia, it is different,” says Denis. “They know players when they are stars but at the end of playing football, they know him for one or two years and then he is forgotten.
“I don’t know why. It’s not like in England. People in England remember our dad still, after 17 years, and he wasn’t an English player.
“He was captain of Slovakia and people remember him but he has to buy tickets for football games. He never gets free tickets.”
Boris adds: “He played for Trnava for 10 or 15 years, he was captain, he was a trainer in Trnava, but now, nothing. It is like it for all the players.
“It is different in Slovakia; even in the national games, he doesn’t have tickets, nothing.”
In fact, Balis had to cough up for the 11 tickets he acquired for some of the Albion fans for Tuesday night’s European Championship qualifier between Slovakia and Azerbaijan in Trnava.
The fans reimbursed the family and Boris was due to meet them for a pre-match beer before attending the game. Igor and Denis decided against attending. They did not rate their country’s chances of qualification.
The Balis boys’ disaffection with Slovakian football is outweighed, however, by their pride in the old man.
“Not too many players from Slovakia played in the Premier League and our dad went to England when he was 30,” says Denis. He was too old for the Premier League but he played there for three years.
“He didn’t change. When he went to England, he was a normal guy and when he came back, he was still a normal guy.”
The lack of adulation in Trnava is in stark contrast to the atmosphere in the restaurant where, from the comfortable sofa in a corridor where Balis conducts his interview, he can hear the occasional sound of chants from Albion fans — “Igor, Igor, Igor” ringing out as the Borovicka flows.
It is impossible to extract a negative thought from Balis on Albion. He even smiles at a memory of a tongue-in-cheek Megson calling him a “Slovakian bastard”.
“My wife would have stayed there because she still likes all the architecture and everything in England,” he says.
“It’s something I will remember for the rest of my life and I would remember it even if I had missed it (the penalty) — but for different reasons.
“I learned in England what it means to be a professional football player because it is slightly different here. I had to learn how to behave there because everything about football there is far, far from how it is here. It is fantastic and it is my best memories from my career.
“And the fans are fantastic. The stadiums are always full. We go to church, you go to the stadium!”
It has been an afternoon and early evening planned painstakingly by Balis and his family. The restaurant has been booked, the translator sourced and the train times researched and passed on.
Denis has met the group from the train and Igor has organised an impromptu tour of the Anton Malatinsky Stadium, Trnava’s impressive new football venue.
But a few hours later, with interviews complete, goodbyes, final toasts drunk and bill paid, it is time for the fans to depart.
One member of the group, still uncomfortable with Balis picking up the tab, runs to the bar and purchases a bottle of his favourite white wine as a thank-you gift. Flowers are arranged the next day to be delivered to Adriana at home.
Denis and Boris take their leave but Igor and Adriana insist on accompanying the group on the 15-minute walk to Trnava train station.
There are hugs and kisses and a hasty video call to an exiled Albion fan in Australia, who does not mind being woken in the night to chat to one of his heroes.
And then Igor and Adriana are gone and the fans are on their way back to Bratislava to continue their trip, in which they plan to meet Paul Scharner in Vienna and Jan Kozak, another Slovak who made a handful of appearances, at Slovan Bratislava’s training ground.
Their meeting with Balis has been brief but unforgettable and, they hope, the first of many.
As their train pulls into Bratislava, their mobile phones light up in unison to a message, on the trip’s WhatsApp group, from Denis Balis.
“We want to thank you all that you visit us,” it reads. “It was a really good day, to talk with you all about beautiful memories.
“I hope we will see you next time in West Brom and it will be soon.”
and there at 1:01 back left in the long leather coat is me! 
