BKT Solutions at the legendary Górnik Zabrze stadium
Rise of the Legend
It was a cold morning in November 1948 when the Katowicki Sport announced to the readers that the Physical Education and Sports Department of the Central Union of Miners was striving to merge a several miner clubs existing within one location. It was planned that the first club of this type would be formed in Zabrze, as a result of a merger of Pogoń Zabrze, Zjednoczenie, Concordia and Skra, and this would be Górniczy Zakładowy Klub Sportowy Górnik. It was relatively easy to unite fiercely competing clubs in Zabrze as they have existed for just over three years, so they did not manage to completely take hold in their environment.
The founding meeting was not easy. The officials of the four clubs were far from reaching an unanimous decision, but they had no choice – Górnik was to be founded. Since the mines of the Zabrzańskie Zjednoczenie Przemysłu Węglowego (Zabrze Association of the Coal Industry) was the patronage of the club, no other name could be taken into account. 12 sports sections were established. Probably, prior to official registration of the club along with its office, in 1949 GZKS converted into the ‘Górnik’ field sports association led by the director of the ‘Zabrze – Zachód’ mine.
The history of the stadium itself dates back much further, since the first significant competition was held at the stadium on 24 March 1935 – the national teams of the German and Polish part of Silesia played a football match. Around 7,000 spectators came to see this sports event. 10 years later, Zabrze was incorporated into Poland and the Soviet Army stationed on the stadium devastating the pitch. The stadium remained the property of the city which soon after leased it to the newly formed KS Zabrze.
The second half of the 20th century was full of success, to mention 14 titles of the Polish Champion or 6 Polish Cups. Some of the Górnik players: Ernest Pol, Hubert Kostka, Włodzimierz Lubański or Andrzej Szarmach. The most famous players of the 1990s include Tomasz Hajto, Robert Warzycha and Tomasz Wałdowch, while in the recent years the club was represented by Krzysztof Mączyński, Arkadiusz Milik and Paweł Olkowski.
A stadium for the 21st century
For the last few years, the Górnik supporters have been excited about the building of a new stadium. Finally, in February this year, the District Construction Supervision Inspectorate issued a permit to use the Ernest Pohl Stadium. The object was approved for use with 24,563 seats, catering and sanitary facilities, a business club, VIP boxes and necessary technical and storage rooms. The project of the telecommunications network was delivered by the BKT Design Office in Katowice, while for completion purposes, complex BKT solutions were applied to supply a horizontal and vertical cabling system in copper and optical fibre technologies, e.g. to the ticket and access control system, the entire video surveillance monitoring, BKT 4DC 42U and BKT SRS 42U server racks with equipment for LAN network and power distribution arrangement, including power management units with environmental condition monitoring. The overall cost of the project for BKT Elektronik exceeded the value of PLN 1,400,000.00. It is not over yet, as the building will be extended with a business and commercial part.
The Ernest Pohl Stadium in Zabrze is not the only sports facility BKT can be proud of. Solutions of the company are applied in the following stadiums as well: the National Stadium, Wisła Kraków stadium, PGE Arena and the new Tychy City Stadium.
