Ekibastuz

Kuanysh Begalin is the name that keeps coming back from the club's early seasons. In 2005 he was named the best player in Kazakhstan's First League.

The club was founded in 2003 as Energetik. It stayed in Pavlodar until 2008, when it was renamed Energetik-2, and only became Ekibastuz in 2010, the year it also relocated to the city on the badge. That 2005 season produced two First League standouts at once: alongside Begalin, Vasiliy Prosekov scored 34 goals. Energetik won the First League that year and again in 2007. Two spells in the Premier League, in 2006 and 2008, both ended near the bottom of the table, 16th and 14th respectively, and the club has not been back since.

Home games are played at the Shakhtyor stadium in Ekibastuz, which holds 6,300 — a fitting home ground for a club nicknamed the Ugolki, "little coals", in a city built on mining. The orange and black kit carries the same association.

The scoring names changed with the shirt: in 2012, playing under the Ekibastuz name, Azamat Aubakirov led the First League with 8 goals, a modest tally next to Prosekov's haul seven years earlier but enough to top the division that season. As of October 2025, Ekibastuz sit 10th in the First League, well short of the title-winning form the club showed twice in its first decade.