Lechia Gdańsk

Lechia Gdańsk is a football club in Poland. It was founded in 1945 by people who supported Lechia Lwów but were forced to leave Lwów. Its name is a poetic name of Poland but initially the team was named BOP Baltia Gdańsk before 1946, when it was named Lechia.

They made their Ekstraklasa debut in 1948 but after a year they faced relegation. Their following appearance in the top flight was in 1951 but in 1953 they relegated for one season. In 1956 Lechia was third in Ekstraklasa but at the end of the 1962/63 season they relegated to the Second Division and in the 1966/67 season they went on to relegate to lower division. In the 1970s and at the start of 1980s the team was promoted to the second division and then relegated again before the 1982/83 season, when they won the Polish Cup in 1983 at the expense of Piast Gliwice, whom they beat 2-1. That year they were Polish Supercup winners and in 1984 they advanced to the top division. Since then and till 1995 the team faced one more relegation and in the summer of 1995 they merged with Olimpia Poznań becoming Lechia/Olimpia Gdańsk but that didn’t save the team from relegation to the second and then third division. In 1996 Olimpia came out of that merger but the team remained Lechia/Olimpia. In 1998 Lechia merged with Polonia, but then the merger dissolved and Lechia went on to fall to the lower leagues.

Lechia gradually promoted to second division in 2005 and at the end of the 2007/08 season the team won the First League (or second division) thus advancing to Ekstraklasa.

The team’s names were changed many times and their current name Lechia Gdańsk S.A. was given in 2009. They play their home matches at PGE Arena Gdańsk, the stadium has 43,615 seats.