Charlie Ing’s missing football stadium seat goes viral

In a strange turn of events a Barnard Castle businessman was invited to a Polish football match to see a new seat inspired by his viral X post.

Charlie Ing’s passion for Crystal Palace led him to watch a European Conference semi-final match against Ukrainian side Shaktar Donetsk which, because of the war, was held in Poland.

However, the antiques dealer became a bit confused when searching for his seat, number 21, at Wisła Kraków’s stadium. A steward he asked for help simply laughed, because the seat did not exist.

On X, he posted a picture of the missing seat and added, “I’m seat 21, and it doesn’t exist. Steward just laughed. Up the Palace #cpfc”.

Charlie said: “I did it jokingly, I didn’t think anyone would look at it. I didn’t know it was being shared everywhere. The only thing I did notice, my phone kept on dying. It went a bit crazy.”

The post racked up 2.8million views.

Wisła Kraków saw the post and replied: “Unfortunately, this was due to an error within our IT system. Well – when the owner of the club is also a programmer, things like this can happen…

“Inspired by you, we’ll be creating a brand new, dedicated seat.”

The club went further and invited Charlie and two of his friends to attend the club’s 120th anniversary match against Wrexham FC on Saturday, July 11.

He said: “It was nil-nil, but it was good fun, a lot of banter. Especially afterwards because at 11pm was the England game and we were in Kraków with loads of Welsh people, and obviously they aren’t the biggest fans of England.

“We ended up watching the game with some Norwegians in a pub.”

Wisła Kraków owner Jarosław Królewski also gave the Charlie a personal tour of the stadium the following day.

Charlie said: “It was really nice. The football club was really accommodating and hospitable. Any English fans wanting to watch football in Poland it is easy to do. It is just a two-hour 20 flight from Leeds or Newcastle.

“The city is beautiful, the architecture is great and everything is not super expensive compared to English rates. The beers are cheap.”

Of the new stadium seat, he added: “Funnily enough, you can’t actually sit in it – there’s no legroom.”