Lechia Gdańsk () is a Polish football club based in Gdańsk. As of the 2026–27 season, they compete in the I liga.
The club was founded in 1945 by people expelled from Lwów, who were supporters of Poland's oldest football team Lechia Lwów, founded in 1903. The club's name comes from Lechia, a poetic name for Poland, and is a continuation of the name used by the club based in Lwów. In their early years, Lechia enjoyed some success, most notably finishing third in the Polish top division, before spending decades in the second and third tiers. In the early 1980s, Lechia won the Polish Cup, the Polish Super Cup, and played in a European competition for the first time. After having two mergers with other teams in the 1990s the club had to restart from the sixth tier in 2001. In May 2008 the club was promoted again to the Ekstraklasa, with the club's most recent success coming in 2019, finishing third in the league and again winning both the Polish Cup and the Super Cup, before suffering relegation to I liga in 2023.
History
Early years (1945–1948)
The club was founded on 7 August 1945 in Gdańsk and was originally named "BOP Baltia Gdańsk". The club was first established by the "Port Reconstruction Office" (). The BOP's purpose was to help rebuild Polish sea ports which were destroyed during World War II, and saw it best to create a sports club for the BOP workers. BOP Baltia's first game came on 2 September 1945, in which they lost the game 6–4 against Milicyjny Klub Sportowy z Wrzeszcza (Militia Sports Club from Wrzeszcz) in a friendly. BOP Baltia's first league game was a week later and played against WKS 16 Dywizji (Military Sports Club of the 16th Division). Due to the disruption of football in Poland due to the war the first season back was focused on regional qualifying for leagues to reformat the Polish football leagues. In the Gdańsk regional qualifying Lechia won all 6 games including both games in their first Gdańsk Derby games against Gedania Gdańsk, winning the group and being promoted to the A Klasa (A Class, the second division in Poland at the time).
Towards the end of February 1946, BOP officials had a meeting, in which it was decided that the name of the club should be changed. The team became known as "Sports Club for the Port Reconstruction Office Lechia Gdańsk" (), 'Lechia' coming from Lechia Lwów, as a majority of the workers at BOP and those who studied at the Gdańsk University of Technology had been expelled from Lwów at the end of WW2.
Lechia fared well in its early years in the lower divisions finishing top of their district championships in both the 1946–47 and 1947–48 seasons. For Lechia to be promoted to the top division they needed to win additional qualifying rounds against the other district champions, playing a series of games in playoff games, before a final playoff league with four teams of five being promoted. In the playoffs for the 1946–47 season Lechia finished bottom of the playoff league, being the only team not to advance to the top division. Lechia's fortunes changed the following season however and achieved promotion at the end of the 1947–48 season when they finished top of the promotion playoffs league.
First years of top flight football (1949–1954)
In 1949 Lechia played in the top flight for the first time (at this time the top division was called the "I liga"). While it was a historic year for the club, and showed the competitiveness of the team in their early years to play in the top division, it was not a season to be enjoyed by Lechia in terms of on field performances, winning only 4 games all season and losing an incredible 15 times out of 22 games, finishing bottom of the league as a result. Due to suffering relegation in their first Ekstraklasa season the club found themselves back in the second tier of Polish football in 1950. Their first year in the II liga was a year of transition and the team initially struggled finishing 6th out of 10 teams, and finding themselves way off the pace for an immediate return to the top division. The league format of the II liga was changed for the 1951 season, where in the previous season the division was split into two groups with both winners being promoted, the 1951 season saw the II liga being split into four groups with the group winners playing each other in a mini playoff league with the top two being promoted to the Ekstraklasa. Lechia won their group which was the most diverse group at the time, playing against teams in Poznań and Wrocław who were both across the country from Gdańsk. The team advanced to the playoff league and came up against OWKS Kraków, Górnik Wałbrzych and Gwardia Warsaw, winning the playoffs group on goal difference and being promoted back to the I liga with OWKS Kraków.
The 1952 season was an unusual one due to the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. The start of the league was delayed due to the preparation of forming a team to go to the Olympics. As a result of this the Young Leaders Rally Cup was organised, and was the first League Cup in Polish football. The organising of the cup was to give the players an opportunity to show off their skills, and with a more relaxed competition compared to the league would provide the Polish team with the best possible preparation to perform well at the Olympics. The cup ran from April – July and initially saw two groups where each team played each other twice, with the top three teams in each group going through to the playoffs to decide the winner and the final standings. Lechia finished 3rd in their group and thus played against Lech Poznań who also finished 3rd in their group to play in the 5th placed playoff. Lech won the game 2–1, meaning Lechia finished in 6th place overall in the Young Leaders Rally Cup. After the Olympics, in which Poland were knocked out in the first round, the league officially started, around five months later than it usually would. The league took a similar format to the cup, with the teams being split into two groups, with the two winners playing each other to decide on that years champions. Lechia finished the disruptive season in 7th place, ensuing they remained in the league for the following season. The 1953 season returned to normality with one league and each team playing each other twice. The season saw Lechia struggle and finish bottom of the league, and were again relegated from the top division finding the increased level of competitiveness difficult to deal with over the course of a full season.
Being back in the II liga Lechia once again found themselves to be competitive. While the club struggled more so than the teams around them in terms of scoring goals, Lechia were the best team defensively in the league, shown by their ability to keep clean sheets, having 12 clean sheets in their 20 games. The team finished the season on 28 points, the same as Stal Sosnowiec who ended up winning the league, but found themselves finish in second place due in part to Stal scoring 10 more goals than Lechia and having a much better goal difference. The immediate promotion and return to the I liga showed that at the time the club were in a position where they were competitive, but too good for the second division, yet struggled against the much better organised clubs in the first division.
Early "Golden Years" and top division stay (1955–1963)
Upon Lechias return to the Ekstraklasa, the players involved during these years and the initial success of the team upon their return to the I liga, were therefore seen as being the club's "golden years" of their early history. Players such as Bogdan Adamczyk, Henryk Gronowski, Robert Gronowski, Roman Korynt, Hubert Kusz, Czesław Lenc, Czesław Nowicki, and Roman Rogocz, all of whom had long playing careers with Lechia, were all important in making the club competitive upon their return to the league. Their first season back, 1955, was at the time the club's most successful season in their history. On their way to a 5th-place finish in the league, their highest at that point, they beat strong teams at the time such as ŁKS Łódź, Lech Poznań, Zagłębie Sosnowiec, and the 1955 Polish champions Legia Warsaw. The season also provided the chance for the club's first piece of silverware by reaching the Polish Cup final for the first time. Lechia's route in the Polish Cup () to the final saw them beating Sandecja Nowy Sącz, Wisła Kraków, Odra Opole and Gwardia Warsaw. The final saw Lechia play Legia Warsaw at the Polish Army Stadium, Legia's home stadium. Lechia lost the game 5–0 after a hat-trick from Kempny, and a goal each from Pohl and Słaboszowski seeing them finish as runners-up in the cup, and only the second team formed after the Second World War to feature in the Polish Cup final.
In the league, the 1956 season was more successful than the year prior, seeing Lechia finish on the podium for the first time, with the club also becoming the first formed after the war to finish in the top three. Despite only scoring 25 goals in 22 games, Lechia finished the season in 3rd place. The club relied heavily on their defence that season keeping 10 clean sheets and conceding only 21, the second lowest in the league that season, while their highest goal scorer was Rogocz who scored only 7 for the club that season in the league. The achievement of 3rd place happened under the guidance of Tadeusz Foryś, arguably Lechia's greatest manager in their earlier years, seeing them promoted from the second tier, taking them to a cup final, and achieving their highest finish of 3rd place.
The following season saw Lechia remaining competitive, but with the defensive side of the team not performing as well for the team as they went on to finish in 5th place. Once again the team only scored 25 goals in 22 games, the joint second lowest in the league, and the only team to not score more than 25 goals to not be relegated. Despite only scoring 25 goals that season in the league the team did see a player scoring the club's first hat-trick in the top division, with Bronisław Szlagowski scoring 3 in a 5–0 win over Zagłębie Sosnowiec. While defensively the team was not as strong as in 1956, the 29 goals they conceded, which was still among the better sides in the division, ensured the team finished in the top half of the league for a third successive season. At the end of the season, Tadeusz Foryś, who saw Lechia's rise from the II liga to being a challenger for the top places in the I liga, left Lechia to manage Arka Gdynia.
Following the departure of Foryś who made Lechia defensively strong, the team's fortunes declined from the season with one notable difference from the previous season being the number of goals the team conceded. The side fell to 8th place, just surviving relegation by a single point. This was a trend which was to continue for Lechia. While the team improved to finish 6th in the 1959 season, the team only managed to score 19 goals in their 22 games, with only one team scoring fewer, Stal Sosnowiec, who finished bottom of the league. The next three seasons saw the team flirting with relegation, finishing 9th in 1960, scoring the joint fewest in the league and surviving relegation by a point, 8th in 1961, scoring the joint second least in the league but surviving more comfortably by 5 points, and finishing 9th again in 1962. The 1962 saw a change in the league format, with the season changing from a summer league (playing from spring-autumn) to it becoming a winter league (playing autumn-spring). The league for that season was therefore shorter, with teams playing a total of 13 games, 12 in a mini league, and once in a playoff game to formalise the final standings.