“Some people believe that football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” The words of the late Scottish coach Bill Shankly are a perfect description of how football fans feel about their team. Unlike a player, coach or investor, they stick with their team for life. They’re ecstatic when they win, but they often have to swallow the bitterness of defeat. They live in constant conflict, having to balance common sense, economic realities, and at times even the law. Common sense because they believe, even when others lose faith. Economics because they often spend all their money to see their team play at the other end of Poland. And finally the law, because the life of a football fan can get you involved in a lot of “gray areas”. In his portrayal of “The Blues”, a.k.a. Ruch Chorzów fans (including politician Jerzy Buzek and writer Wojciech Kuczok), director Cezary Grzesiuk attempts to show how, contrary to popular belief, a football fan is often just an average Joe with normal problems. Every community has its good and bad qualities. To exaggerate one or the other doesn’t reveal the truth—it’s just sensationalism.
Cezary Grzesiuk
Cezary Grzesiuk, Krystian Kamiński, Piotr Nosal
Paweł Labe, Cezary Grzesiuk, Tomasz Szołtys, Jan Mamoń
Rafał Rozmus, Tomasz Donocik
Poland