Pogoń Szczecin

The derby with Arkonia is not in the facts, and neither is any rival. The men who started the club in 1948 had been moved west from Lwów after the war, into Szczecin. They named the team Sztorm. That lasted until a merger in March 1949, then dissolution in November 1950, then a rebuild under the port authority as Kolejarz. Only in the autumn of 1955 did the club take the name Pogoń, along with the navy and maroon it inherited from Pogoń Lwów.

The port did more than run the club for a spell. It gave it Portowcy , the Dockers, which is what the terraces still shout. The other nickname, Duma Pomorza , is the wider claim: pride of Pomerania, a region rather than a district.

Home is the Stadion Miejski im. Floriana Krygiera, 21,163 seats.

What the record shows is a club that keeps arriving in the last week of a season with nothing to collect. Second in Ekstraklasa in 1986–87, second again in 2000–01. Third in 1983–84, then third twice running in 2020–21 and 2021–22.

Seventy-odd years in, the trophy cabinet holds no league title, no cup, no Super Cup.