Samsunspor Kulübü The name of Samsunspor and its crest, which features an equestrian statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, refer back to one of the most significant dates in Turkish history, 19 May 1919, the day Atatürk landed in Samsun and set in motion the Turkish War of Independence. That date gave its name to one of the five local clubs, 19 Mayıs, whose merger in 1965 gave rise to today's Samsunspor.
The club was formally established on 30 June 1965 through the merger of five local sides, 19 Mayıs, Akınspor, Fener Gençlik, Samsunspor and Samsunspor Galatasaray, and played its first professional league match on 5 September 1965, winning 1-0 against Yeşildirek. In the 1969-70 season, Samsunspor became the first club from the Black Sea coast to reach Turkey's top division, opening the way for other clubs from the region.
The club's most successful era came in the 1980s, when Samsunspor twice finished third in the Süper Lig, in 1985-86 and 1986-87, with forward Tanju Çolak topping the league's scoring charts in both seasons. On the European stage, the club's finest hour came in 1993-94, when it won the Balkans Cup after beating Greece's PAS Giannina in the final, one of only a handful of European trophies claimed by a club from outside Turkey's largest cities. A few years later, in the 1998 Intertoto Cup, Samsunspor eliminated England's Crystal Palace on the way to the semi-finals, where they were beaten by Werder Bremen.
The following decades brought considerable instability. Samsunspor has been relegated from the Süper Lig seven times, a record for the competition, but has also won the second-tier championship seven times, more than any other club in that division's history. After years of moving between divisions, Samsunspor returned to the Süper Lig in 2023 and quickly re-established itself, finishing a strong third in the 2024-25 season.
Known to their supporters as Kırmızı Şimşekler (The Red Lightning), Samsunspor play their home matches at the Samsun 19 Mayıs Stadium, opened in 2017 on the site of an earlier ground of the same name that had served the club since 1975. The club remains the most decorated side from Samsun province and an important representative of Black Sea football in Turkey.
