Stade de ReimsStade de Reims became the first French club to reach two European Cup finals in the 1950s, and the story of both finals became intertwined with the career of one man - Raymond Kopa, who led Reims to a 3-4 defeat against Real Madrid in 1956, having seen his side race into a 2-0 lead inside just ten minutes, before moving to the Spanish club himself the following year and lining up for the opposition in the rematch final of 1959, which the French side again lost. The club traces its origins to the Société Sportive du Parc Pommery, founded on 29 September 1910 as a corporate sports association for the champagne house Pommery & Greno, established on the initiative of Marquis Melchior de Polignac for the firm's employees. Stade de Reims itself was born on 18 June 1931 as the successor to that organisation, playing its first match on 23 August the same year and beating local side FC Reims 7-2.
The club's golden era spanned 1949 to 1962, when, under coach Albert Batteux, the Red-and-Whites won the French championship six times - in 1949, 1953, 1955, 1958, 1960 and 1962 - completing the club's first-ever league-and-cup double in the 1957-58 season by adding the Coupe de France. The hero of that campaign was striker Just Fontaine, who scored 34 goals in 34 league matches to finish as top scorer, and a few months later, at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, set an all-time single-tournament record with 13 goals in just six matches. Reims players - alongside Kopa and Fontaine, also Robert Jonquet, Roger Piantoni and Jean Vincent - formed the backbone of the France side that finished third at that World Cup.
The decade of dominance came to an end when the club's partnership with coach Batteux ended after the 1962-63 season, and Reims drifted away from the top of French football in the following decades, dropping as far as the fourth-tier National in the 2009-10 season, from which it bounced straight back, securing promotion before the campaign had even finished. The club returned to Ligue 1 in 2012 after nearly fifty years away, staying there continuously for the following decade before being relegated back to the second tier in the 2024-25 season. The club, whose colours are red and white, plays its home matches at the Stade Auguste-Delaune, named after a French athlete, communist and resistance member tortured to death by the Germans in 1943.