You can make new friends, talk about HMB and drive the postman crazy at the same time if you have the same hobby as Konstantin Matetsky from Russia.
A year ago he started collecting stripes and badges with HMB clubs’ emblems. The idea was suggested by a friend of Konstantin, who collects emblems of police and fire departments from all over the world.
“I thought this was a great opportunity to learn more about the steel sport and tell more about it. Today I have more than 40 club emblems (stripes and badges), but there are hundreds of others that I want to find and have a story to tell. After all, a patch is not just a picture, but “colors” and “symbols”, or even banners under which tough guys go to the lists. It is filled with meaning, strength and importance for the clubs. A piece of their faith, values, history and aspirations“.
It turned out that getting the club emblems is not easy. At the beginning of his journey, Konstantin faced certain difficulties, but nothing could lead him astray! Of course, one of the first stripes in the collection was the emblem of the Northern Spear HMB club, of which Konstantin is a member.
“Facebook helped to collect further, where I started using Google Translate to write to different countries, to all the clubs that I could find. Someone rejoiced and sent, someone wanted to make a change, someone refused to share his club patch with me, many did not answer at all. But with every new patch I posted about, it got easier to get a new one. At first I thought that all my stories would be short Instagram posts. But it turned out to be so exciting!”
According to Konstantin, every time he holds a new patch in his hands, he carefully understands the symbolism of the image and its history. In addition, he usually tells a little about each club so that people know more about their brothers in arms all over the world. Especially for this, Konstantin created a group on social networks, which he called “Flameheart Herald”.
“It’s amazing that, despite politics or stereotypes, people repeatedly enter the battlefield, cultivating perseverance, honor, dignity. The ideals of chivalry live in them and are manifested not only in sports, but also in life! I want to collect and talk about the patches of all the HMB clubs! And given that some clubs, for example Bern, have more than three chevrons, it is a multi-level and difficult task to assemble the collection I want”.
If you want to make Konstantin happy and give him the emblem of your club, contact him directly.
HMBIA News would like to thank Konstantin Matetsky for the interesting conversation and wish him success in achieving this goal.
