Gryf Wejherowo

Gryf Wejherowo is a Polish football club in Wejherowo, Poland. The club plays in the IV liga Pomerania. It was founded as in 1921, but after World War II the club was renamed to Gryf Wejherowo.

Gryf Wejherowo is the oldest football club in Pomeranian Voivodeship, and for several years was the only club in the region playing in the II liga. It is well known in Poland for reaching the 2011–12 Polish Cup quarterfinals after beating clubs from the Polish top-flight and second tier.

Football team

. Previously there was an ultras group of supporters called  – which prepared banners, flags, and chanted at all of the matches – but dissolved after supporters started to boycott because of a conflict with the club's management. 's fans are friendly with and supporters. The latter of the two is also one of 's local rivals. Most of the fans also support .

does not just have one or two rivals, but has several clubs that clearly have feelings of animosity towards them. Some of the more notable rival clubs are and . Matches involving these two rivals often feed to a lot of anticipation and antagonistic promotion, and extra security. has local friendly rivalries. and are two local rivals located in Wejherowo County and compete against in the Kashubian Tricity local derby.

's first shirt sponsor was the town council of Wejherowo until 2004. The next sponsor was Northpol, and from 2007 to 2014, the strategic sponsor was Orlex, which supported the club with 500,000zł every year, and starting in 2012 Orlex became Gryf Wejherowo's title sponsor. Some of the secondary sponsors were: Northpol, and PKS Wejherowo. Since 2015-16 season the club does not have any shirt sponsors.

Roster

The football managers were:

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Colours

The home colours have always been yellow and black, the Kashubians national colors. The numbers have always been black.

The away colours were previously all-black with yellow accents, including the socks. But there were also several years in the 1990s, when the away jersey was pink and black. During the 2010–2012 seasons, the away jersey stripes were changed to their sponsor's colours: red, navy blue and white, however they were dropped. Currently the away jersey is a white shirt with black bars on the shoulders, worn with black shorts and white socks.

Sports club

History

In April 1921, a Polish Sokół movement nest was the first gymnastics association organized in Wejherowo. Soon after that the predecessor of the current Wejherowo sports club, , was organized, along with and some other smaller associations. Because of , the city became famous for top national boxers and long-distance runners, despite that they lacked modern training facilities, which were completed in 1927. nest had 700 members. Wejherowo's sports movement regularly organized various competitions and hosted nationally renowned tournaments including the "", a tennis blue riband event in which players such as Ignacy Tłoczyński, Józef Hebda, and Jadwiga Jędrzejowska competed. The development of this sports movement was stopped by World War II.

After in April 1945, all sport clubs in Wejherowo merged. In 1952 the club name was changed to "." was considered the most important of them all. There were also single sport clubs, like and , but they quickly fell into obscurity and dissolved.

The heritage of Interwar period sports clubs was mainly dominated by boxing.
Gryf was also a club for boxers; past members who competed for the club include Olympic medal winners Hubert Skrzypczak and Henryk Dampc.
Despite these successes, the importance of the sports club decreased because it lacks the financial support of a large local employer for development so the sports club lost boxers to , footballers to various clubs, and handball players to .
On a side note, had also won the Polish women's team bowling cup during this period.

In the 1970s, the club's football team was promoted to the third tier of the Polish football league system but was demoted three years later. Football's popularity grew in Wejherowo and eventually dominated over the club's other sports. Football in Wejherowo even kept its popularity supreme over basketball, during the 1980s, when basketball was making some headway and accomplishing minor achievements.

The team again was promoted to the in 1992, but was demoted five years later in a restructuring of the Polish football league system. By 1998, the team returned to the previous division as " Gryf Wejherowo" and won a Regional Polish Cup. In 1995, some of the club's athletes left the team and founded a new club, Wejher Wejherowo.

During the years 1999–2004 were definitely the most difficult in the club's history. The club was in debt to the amount of 300,000 zł, which was equivalent to £43,336 as of 2004. For a time, until 2002, the club was not exclusively focused on football but also bowling and duplicate bridge. The team was the only club from the region which played in the pre-2008 season. During that time, it included a few players, such as Dawid Pomorski and Wojciech Pięta, who are widely regarded today as legends. Both Pomorski and Pięta—despite the club's debt and difficulty paying it—are widely credited within the community of Wejherowo for competing at a level that raised the team to the , and in turn won two regional cups in 2000 and 2003. But at the end of the 2003–2004 season, the team was relegated to the and the board resigned.

Rafał Szlas became the chairman in 2004. With Szlas's company he paid off all the club's debts and started to rebuild after suffering another relegation to the . In 2006, the team reached the 4th tier, and gained a new club sponsor: The Orlex Company. From 2006–2009, the club reached higher divisions using local players, but when they reached the 4th tier, which was renamed the , they decided to appoint a director of football; Wiesław Renusz. Renusz immediately started to trade for new young and talented players, like Grzegorz Gicewicz and Przemysław Kostuch, who are still playing for Gryf. In fact, Gicewicz and Kostuch are widely considered two of the best players in the club's history. In May 2011, former player was hired as the team manager. With Niciński's arrival, he has changed the club's winning average into one of the best in the Pomeranian Voivodeship, to boot, he led the club to win another Polish regional cup. In June 2011, the team reached the quarterfinals of the Central Polish Cup and got promoted to the in June 2012. Unfortunately, Niciński was banned in 2012 for eight months by the Polish Football Association for participating in a 2004 match-fixing scandal, while he was a player. The team's temporary manager became Dariusz Mierzejewski who managed until July 2013. In July 2016 Mariusz Pawlak became new Gryf Wejherowo's manager.

In 2011, a book about the club's history was published: ''9 Dekad Gryfa''.

Honours

* One Polish Women's Team Bowling Cup
* Four Polish Regional FA Cups: 1997–1998, 1999–2000, 2002–2003, 2010–2011

Crest

Gryf Wejherowo's crest is a black Kashubian griffin with a crown, turned to the left on a basic gold shield surrounded by a blue, white and gold circle where the club's name is accompanied by a six-pointed star.

Venue

Gryf Wejherowo plays its home matches at "" Stadium, which is located in the forest south of Wejherowo. The stadium was built between 1924 and 1927 and has two grass pitches: the main pitch is on the central part of the plot of land, and the smaller pitch is reserved for training, and is on an elevated part of the plot of land located to the south. Initially the area was designed for a military shooting range. The stadium's maximum capacity is 2,500, however there are only 1,050 seats.

The stadium has floodlights but it is still not possible to play an official match at night there.

Officials

The current club officials are:
*Chairman: Dariusz Mikołajczak
*Co-chairmen: Wiesław Renusz, Piotr Wieczorek
*Treasurer: Krzysztof Wilkowski
*Youth board member: Tadeusz Ciapa

See also

* Lower Level Football Leagues in Interwar Poland

Notes

References

External links

*{{in lang, pl}
Polish football database


1921 establishments in Poland
Association football clubs established in 1921
Football clubs in Pomeranian Voivodeship