Korona Kielce

The 2004/05 season took them up through the I liga, and by the following spring the club that had just arrived in the Ekstraklasa was two rounds from a trophy, going down to Dyskobolia Grodzisk Wielkopolski in the 2006/07 Puchar Polski final. No Polish championship followed, and none had before it.

Korona formed on 10 July 1973 out of a merger between two Kielce sides, Iskra and SHL, and the name on the badge kept changing with whoever was paying for it — Kolporter Korona under its sponsor in the early 2000s, then a straight sale to the city that left it simply Korona Kielce.

The derby that matters locally is against KSZO from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, played under the name Derby Świętokrzyskie, a fixture that runs deeper into the region's football rivalries than anything in the Ekstraklasa table ever has. Home games are played at what is now the EXBUD Arena, renamed more than once by sponsors before that, and the terraces still answer to Złocisto-Krwiści — the same name carried by the club's own supporters' association.

Fifteen thousand five hundred and fifty is the number on the stadium's official capacity, though league safety rules trim it down to just over 15,100 on matchdays.