Fever pitch
By : Celia Barnes
Football is Andrzej Bobowskis life. At 61 years of age, hes seen the Polish National team play 153 times. His first match was back in 1956 when Poland defeated Norway 5-3 in Warsaw.
Since then hes traveled the world to attend six World Cup finals, clocking up 74 matches with the last one in France in 1998, and is now psyching himself up for next years competition in Japan and Korea.
Hes created his own Web site dedicated to Polish lovers of football, and hes also the president of his own invention, the Polish National Team Supporters Club. Membership: 157 and counting.
Ive always loved this game, Bobowski said. As a child I used to sneak into team buses on their away trips. Just last week, he and 15 busloads of other fans traveled to Belarus to watch Poland play...and lose 4-1 the teams first defeat in 13 games.
But like a true fan, Bobowski has stuck with his team through the good times and bad including the dark decades: the 1980s and 1990s, when defeats and allegations of corruption in the government-run Polish Football Association (PZPN) turned fans away in droves.
And today, hes no longer one of the few whos crazy about the game. As the Polish team the first European team to qualify for the 2002 World Cup finals climbs to greater heights of success, fans across the country are once again getting out of their armchairs and donning the red and white stripes of the national side.
Polish fans are now like the 12th player on our team, said Marcin Stefański, deputy general secretary of the PZPN. Without their help, reaching the World Cup finals would have been impossible. If you look at the last game against Norway (where Poland won 3-0), we had a fully-packed stadium of 43,000 people and everyone was there with red and white scarves and red and white faces, and when the players know that someone is supporting them they play better. Its as simple as that.
The PZPN, which appointed new coach Jerzy Engel last year, has also enjoyed ever-greater popularity. To date, 8,000 fans have logged on to its Web site. It has also linked up with Bobowskis supporters club, offering members T-shirts, discount match tickets and even live Web chats with top players like goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek and Nigeria-born Emmanuel Olisadebe. The only thing it hasnt done yet is create its own official fan club.
Under communism, said Stefański, relations between fans and the PFA were so frosty that its still taking time to thaw. But being a fan is becoming more popular, he said. And, of course, now we are in the finals, everyone is a fan.
PZPN Web site www.pzpn.pl (http://www.pzpn.pl)
Andrzej Bobowskis Polish National Team Supporters Club http://www.astercity.net/~andrzejb
