Újpest FC are one of Hungary's oldest football clubs, founded on 16 June 1885 in Újpest — then a separate town north of Budapest — as Újpesti Torna Egylet, a gymnastics association. A football section was formed in 1899, and the club has kept its purple-and-white colours ever since, which is why fans call the side "Lilák" (the Purples).
Újpest have won the Hungarian league (Nemzeti Bajnokság I) 20 times, the third-highest total in the country, along with 11 Hungarian Cups and three Hungarian Super Cups. The club claimed its first championship in the 1929–30 season, and enjoyed its golden era in the 1970s, winning nine titles in eleven seasons.
In European competition, Újpest are two-time winners of the Mitropa Cup and champions of the 1930 Coupe des Nations. Their closest brush with major continental glory came in 1969, when they reached the final of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the forerunner of the UEFA Cup, losing 6–2 on aggregate to Newcastle United. Five years later, in the 1973–74 season, the team reached the semi-finals of the European Cup, where they were eliminated by eventual champions Bayern Munich, and back in 1961–62 Újpest had already gone as far as the semi-finals of the Cup Winners' Cup.
For decades the club has played at the Szusza Ferenc Stadion, named after its greatest legend, Ferenc Szusza, who holds the club's all-time records for appearances (462) and goals (392) and later managed the team. The defensive partnership of brothers Károly Fogl II and József Fogl III, known as the "Fogl-gate," was also central to the club's early success, as was the later generation of stars led by Ferenc Bene.
Today Újpest remain one of Budapest's leading clubs, maintaining a long-standing rivalry with Ferencvárosi TC while continuing to draw on more than a century of tradition.