Ex-President Chernik who was removed from office had been linked to Gornik since he was a child. For a quarter of a century he worked as a journalist in “Sports” in Katowice, where he wrote, inter alia, about the club from Zbrze. Four years ago, he became head of the sports department at the City Museum and also began working with the club to join the board in June 2019. He became president of Górnik at the end of January 2020. Interestingly, in the more than 70-year history of the mining club, He was the second person to hold the position of president who was born in Zabrze. The former was Piotr Brzózka, who performed this function in the first half of the 1960s.
In the summer, Chernik was behind bringing people to Zabrze-Podolsky. He flew to Cologne to meet the former German actor, who signed a contract with Zabrze in July. He was also behind the fact that Jan Urban became coach of Gornick after Marcin Bros, with whom no agreement was reached on a contract extension.
Summer transfers and changes did not help achieve a satisfactory sporting result at the start of the season. Although Górnik’s account has the same number of points as Polish champion Legia Warszawa, i.e. 6 “points”, fans – or at least some of them – have focused their discontent primarily on the club’s president. The shouts of Dariush Chernik were heard after losing his second-round match with Lech Poznan in Zabrze. The same happened on Saturday after the Upper Silesian derby lost to Piast Gliwice, when some fans loudly demanded the departure of Chernik and Artur Patek, who was in charge of the transfers at the club.
Let’s add that after losing with “Kolejorz”, some of the most committed fans of “Torcida” sent a letter to the city’s mayor, Małgorzata Mańka-Szuliuk, demanding that Chernik be removed from office, as if he were. Responsible for results on the field. Then the situation was saved by two successive victories with Stal Mielec and especially with Jagiellonia Białystok. Unfortunately, the prestigious defeat with Piast in Ernst Paul was seen as a cheek to naughty. Thus, Dariusz Chernik became the scapegoat for the judge, who is after all the biggest contributor to the 14-time Polish champion.
Chernik was replaced by Tomas Moinarczyk as acting president, who had previously managed Gornik in 2011 and 2016. He has been associated with the club for years. Anyway, when it comes to the people who hold the position of chief Gurnnik, there is a lot of traffic as there is on the main street of Zabrze during rush hour. The heads of the mining club change as in the kaleidoscope, which is certainly not conducive to the development of Górnik. Chernik, associated with the city and the club for years, seems to be the right person in the right place, but now it has become an apt explanation for the municipality’s problems…
Michel Ziklars
