Górnik Łęczna Górnik Łęczna brought its history full circle in 2023, when the Bogdanka coal mine - alongside which the club had been founded almost half a century earlier as a company works team - symbolically announced it was taking over 100 per cent of the club's shares during a Polish Cup semi-final against Raków Częstochowa, the greatest cup achievement in the club's history. GKS Górnik Łęczna was founded on 20 September 1979, with football its very first section, established on the initiative of workers who had moved to the region from the Copper Belt, Lower and Upper Silesia, and the Lublin area itself. The team climbed rapidly through the local league hierarchy, winning promotion from Class B to Class A in its debut 1979-80 season under coach Andrzej Zachary, before reaching the second tier for the first time in 1988, just nine years after its founding.
Górnik made its historic Ekstraklasa debut on 9 August 2003, beating Wisła Płock 3-1, its promotion to the elite having been sealed earlier that year by a dramatic play-off win over Zagłębie Lubin in which club legend Paweł Bugała scored three goals across the two legs. The club's best-ever league finish came the very next season, 2004-05, when it placed seventh in the Ekstraklasa table. That momentum was brutally interrupted by a nationwide match-fixing scandal - in April 2007 the Polish Football Association punished Górnik with a two-tier relegation and a fine of 270,000 złoty for its involvement in fixing matches, sending the club down to the lower leagues for years. The following decade also brought identity turmoil: in February 2011 the club adopted the name Górniczy Klub Sportowy Bogdanka S.A., a change fans refused to accept, reactivating an independent football section under the historic banner GKS Górnik 1979 Łęczna that July; the club officially reverted to the name Górnik Łęczna on 23 July 2013.
After years spent just below the top flight, including relegation to the III liga in 2018, the club's revival came under coach Kamil Kiereś, who from 2020 guided the Green-and-Blacks through two consecutive promotions - first from the II liga to the I liga, and a year later back to the Ekstraklasa via a play-off win. The high point of that rebuilding period came in the 2022-23 season, when the club reached the Polish Cup semi-final for the first time in its history, losing only to eventual tournament winners Raków Częstochowa. Górnik, known to fans as the Pride of Lublin Region, plays its home matches at a stadium holding just under 7,500 spectators on Jana Pawła II Avenue in Łęczna, maintaining a long-standing regional rivalry with Avia Świdnik and Stal Stalowa Wola.