Joe keeps the heroic tale alive
STOKE CITY goalkeeper Joe Bursik knows all about the Great Escape – his grandad Josef pulled it off.
Bursik, 20, has been thrown in at the deep end by Stoke with Adam
Davies and on-loan keeper Angus Gunn both injured.
Just over two years ago Bursik was playing for Southern League Hednesford and had unspectacular loans to Telford, Accrington and Doncaster.
But when Davies and Gunn were crocked, Bursik took his chance – just like his heroic grandfather did.
Tank commander grandad Bursik was awarded the Czech War Cross and the Order of the Red Star for bravery.
Major General Bursik got Lenin’s Order for heroism for leading tanks to relieve Kiev. But he was no Communist and when he later spoke out he was stripped of his medals and thrown in the maximum security Mirov Prison, a fortified castle on a hill.
He ended up with a 14-year sentence but the chance of a Steve McQueen-like Hollywood escape came when he was moved to a hospital. He was expected to die of TB, but instead seized his moment.
McQueen headed for Switzerland on a motorbike in the iconic film... Josef Bursik jumped on a motorbike and fled to freedom in Bavaria.
A doctor gave Bursik fever injections, making him look ill, and lax prison guards allowed Bursik and his wife to flee to freedom on the bike.
They eventually settled in England and Josef Bursik died in 2002 in Northampton — with the Order of the White Lion, the Czech Republic’s biggest honour, next to his name.
Stoke’s goalkeeper is named Josef after his grandad.
He said: “When you searched my name before I got into the Stoke team it would come up as my grandad.
“What a man.”