The hooliganism that took place on Saturday during the Northern Ireland v Poland football match at Belfast’s Windsor Park could not have happened at a worse time.

It meant Poland hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, with injuries inflicted by Polish fans, then 40 Polish houses targeted in the Donegall Pass area following the match.

It is distressing for me personally, as organiser of Polish Cultural Week which takes place in a couple of months, and for all of us in Northern Ireland’s established Polish community.

These uneducated individuals certainly don’t represent the majority of Poles who want to fully contribute in terms of work and culture to Northern Irish society.

Just hours earlier, on Friday afternoon at the Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast, Mayor Tom Hartley joined me and a selection of high-ranking representatives of the Polish government, including the Republic of Poland’s ambassador to the UK, Barbara Tuge Erecinska, to launch Polish Cultural Week 2009.

It was a sparkling event, with the Polish ambassador to Berlin, the Polish consul in Edinburgh, joining members of the community living peacefully here.

It was a great moment for us, the third year running that we have run this cultural week. The BBC, GMTV and, of course, our media partners, the Belfast Telegraph, covered the launch.

We put so much work into community relations that it’s heartbreaking to see it put at risk by an hour or two of mindless violence.

They really are not representative of the Polish community here, which started arriving soon after Poland joined the European Union in May 2004.

Some people have been in Northern Ireland for over five years, and are well settled, with children in local schools.

Indeed, in his speech Mr Hartley said that it’s estimated that there are around 30,000 Poles living in the province, with 9,000 in Belfast.

These football hooligans who arrived on Saturday aren’t typical of my countrymen, although unfortunately Poland has some of the most notorious football hooligans in Europe.

I was in Brinkley’s bar in Chelsea, London, on Saturday and bumped into Ross Kemp, who made a series of TV programmes on football hooligans in Europe. We talked for a while and, alas, he confirmed my country’s reputation.

What the fans travelling to Saturday’s match did not realise was that we have been working hard to deal with so much potential tension here.

There was even a football match between Polish and Northern Irish fans organised before the big event, with families attending and a beautiful atmosphere.

These troublemakers don’t know how many bridges have been built, how many links created in the community.

In the past there has been a lot of inter-racial conflict, for example, in the Donegall Pass area, with attacks on Polish houses and a Pole beaten with a baseball bat. The area has a history of racial hatred, but it has been dealt with within the local community, and Polish and Northern Irish families now live next to each other in peace.

Sadly, on Saturday, due to the vandalism and inappropriate behaviour of a few hoodlums, the good relations built up over years were destroyed in a day.

There is, of course, more to the Polish community than our reputation for taking over jobs. You have to look at the bigger picture.

In Northern Ireland, our presence helps plug gaps in the economy and the skills market.

As a business consultant to the Chamber of Commerce and InvestNI, I have been talking to the Confederation for British Industry (CBI). Even when unemployment was high in Northern Ireland, in two areas Polish workers have contributed valuable skills to the workforce.

Firstly, at the lower end of the job market, in jobs in areas such as food processing which are paid at the minimum wage, which local workers may not wish to do, and also at the other end of the scale, where Polish doctors, IT consultants and architects add their professional abilities to the workforce.

Also, as Poles we bring our different culture and perspective to Northern Ireland.

In May, as part of the Polish Cultural Week, we will be showing some amazing art, with Solidarity posters on display at the Linen Hall Library.

The PS2 Gallery will have a mock-up of an underground printing shop where propaganda was produced — you will be able to make your own poster.

In the Ormeau Baths Gallery, there will be an exhibition charting Poland’s transition from Communism to democracy, while the Golden Thread has a show about the absurdity of art.

On May 8 we have organised a big Chopin concert at St Anne’s Cathedral.

If you want to learn about our food, visit Deane’s restaurant, where Michael Deane, who is travelling to Poland next month to learn some of our dishes, will be featuring Polish cuisine. I came over to Northern Ireland from London in 2001 and found people very welcoming. In London, I’d worked as assistant director of Outlet, a fashion retailer selling designer clothes, with 15 branches in locations ranging from Knightsbridge and London to Newcastle.

We explored the possibility of opening shops here, then in 2005 I took a break and completed my Masters degree in management in Dublin.

After that, I spotted a gap in the market for business consultancy, and have been developing strategies to enable migrant workers to integrate.

Often, workers who arrive from other countries find they have no medium of communication and so three years ago I set up my Polish magazine, Link Polska, and its circulation has risen from 5,000 to 10,000 copies.

Another part of my work is developing business links between Northern Ireland and Poland.

We have annual trade missions and because Poland has received a lot of EU funding, there are opportunities for Northern Irish architects, builders and engineers.

Also, ironically, Poland is hosting the European Cup in 2012 which will create even more work.

Locally, I have been working with the twinning organisations between the two countries. Newry is twinned with Grueziazd and Carrickfergus with Ruda Slanska.

We have organised a sporting exchange, with 12 and 13-year-old footballers from Carrickfergus travelling to Ruda Slanska in June, and in August the women’s football team from Ruda Slanska is coming to Carrickfergus for an international tournament.

The weekend violence is very unfortunate for both sides that this has happened. The nationalist flag-waving by these imbeciles, which some said linked them to the Real IRA, was a set-up.

They didn’t understand the situation, and after all, a Polish guy was shot in the tragic events of three weeks ago.

Imagine what he would be feeling watching the match from his hospital bed.

Reprisals, however, will not solve anything.

Most people appreciate our work ethic. We are trying to make a full contribution here and are highly ashamed of what happened.

I plead with the local community to understand these people don’t represent us, and that we want to be part of Northern Irish society and contribute in the best way.

Eva Grosman is organiser of Polish Cultural Week in Belfast