[2] Showcasing his football skills at school, his PE teacher saw his talent and recommended him to RKS Stocznia Północna, a now defunct team in Gdańsk.
During the 1967–68 season, Puszkarz often played with the youth team, before making his senior debut in a 2–1 defeat to Arkonia Szczecin.
During this period, Puszkarz scored a total of 18 goals, two of these came in the 5–0 win over Czarny Szczecin, the game which secured Lechia's promotion to the second tier of Polish football.
[3] The next 10 years saw Lechia playing in the second tier, finishing three of those seasons as runners-up, and narrowly missing out on promotion to Ekstraklasa.
In 1976, a Lechia matchday programme said of Puszkarz; "Zdzisiek is a true virtuoso of technique: with the ball every kick every nod, he does whatever he wants with it.
Ambition, determination, speed, and conducting abilities - this is a list of his attributes, which he has recently enriched with no less important: effectiveness".