I currently have the opportunity, together with the BKS Bolesławiec junior team, to view the sports facilities and stadiums of Lower Silesia when travelling to championship matches. We admire the playing fields where our league opponents train and play. We admire them and envy them for what they have and for the conditions they have for training!! It does not matter whether it is a small town such as Ziębice or a very large city such as Wrocław—their stadiums and social facilities are incomparably better than the conditions in Bolesławiec. At every main playing field there are training pitches, at least one, and sometimes, as in Świdnica, three. In Wrocław, we had the opportunity to play at the Olympic Stadium on the main pitch, where the Polish national team sometimes plays its matches! What an experience it was for our younger footballers—there is probably no need to explain. These were unforgettable moments and, I believe, unique ones for many of them. To appear as a player at such a facility!? A dream stadium—and what is it like in Bolesławiec? V Returning to Bolesławiec, we return to the old rubbish dump—to a grey reality. One MOS stadium, one playing field on which grass stopped growing long ago... many training groups exercising at the same time, from youth players through juniors to seniors. That is the situation for players from the Bolesławiec club. There are also athletes, schools and recreational events, etc. Everything takes place on one playing field. Now autumn days have arrived!! Rain!!! After training on the waterlogged field, the boys are unbelievably muddy! They come to the changing room and change into their everyday clothes in order to get home, where they can wash themselves, launder their training kit and put on clean, dry clothes. One cannot be surprised that many parents, after seeing their children in such a state, give up sending them to further training sessions. This is the reality! Sport and the conditions for practising it in Bolesławiec! It is high time to start building a healthier atmosphere around sport in our town. Should there not be sport at a national level in Bolesławiec, which already has 50,000 inhabitants? It is well known that success in the sporting arena attracts many young followers, stimulates mass participation in sport and physical culture, including recreational activities. I would like to quote here a fragment of an article in Gazeta Wyborcza concerning crime among children and young people... in the Jelenia Góra Voivodeship: “the threat to social life in the Jelenia Góra region is growing; crime, drug addiction and alcoholism are increasing.” According to the education superintendent Andrzej Szostak... the situation is worst in this respect in Bolesławiec, Zgorzelec and Jelenia Góra. Why does Bolesławiec lead this disreputable statistic? Another very important problem is postural defects in children, already affecting well over 50%. Is one of the many causes not the lack of mass participation in sport? Let us give young people this opportunity, let us create conditions for practising sport and for releasing their energy through sport.
The first and proper step in this direction would be to carry out a good and prompt renovation of the stadium and its facilities, so that those who are already training would have better conditions for achieving results and practising their chosen sport. The next step could be to take up the subject of a SPORTS HALL. People have been talking about a hall for many years, still without a positive outcome, and about renovating the stadium for more than a year. There is money for this purpose in the city budget. We are waiting for the stadium renovation to be carried out quickly. The appearance of the municipal stadium is also the city’s showcase; many events take place here, and domestic and foreign guests visit—IT IS TIME TO STOP BEING ASHAMED OF ITS APPEARANCE! The election period for the city authorities has passed; the time for work has arrived. The subject of sport and physical culture appeared in all the election programmes. The time has come to put these plans into practice; next year’s budget must take the needs of sport into account. I warmly encourage positive and effective action under the slogan: SPORT TEACHES AND RAISES, SPORT IS HEALTH