Lechia GdańskLechia Gdańsk wrote one of the most remarkable stories in the history of the Polish Cup - a triumph achieved by a club then playing in the third tier. Founded on 7 August 1945, shortly after Gdańsk became part of Poland, as the Sports Club of the Port Reconstruction Bureau Baltia, the club adopted the name Lechia a year later, in tribute to the pre-war Lechia Lwów, from which it also inherited its white-and-green colours.
After years on the margins of Polish football, the 1982/83 season arrived, and under the patronage of the controversial sponsor Nikodem Skotarczak, third-tier Lechia achieved the impossible - winning the Polish Cup, and then, on 30 July 1983, beating national champions Lech Poznań 1-0 at their own Municipal Stadium in the first-ever Polish Super Cup match. To this day, it remains the only occasion on which the Polish Cup has gone to a third-tier club. The reward for the cup triumph was a place in the Cup Winners' Cup, where Lechia drew defending champions Juventus, who fielded five members of Italy's 1982 World Cup-winning squad, including Paolo Rossi. The Gdańsk side lost 0-7 in Turin and 2-3 in the return leg at home, but the tie against the eventual finalists became part of club legend - while in Italy, the players were received in audience by Pope John Paul II, and on their return to Poland some ten thousand fans greeted them at the airport.
Supporters waited 36 years for the feat to be repeated. In the 2018/19 season, Lechia won the Polish Cup for a second time, followed by the Super Cup, this time as an established Ekstraklasa side. Despite its rich history, the club has never won the Polish championship, though in 1983 it recorded its highest-ever league finish, third place. The white-and-greens now play their home matches at a modern stadium built for Euro 2012, which has for years remained one of the most recognisable sporting venues in Poland.
