Hapoel Umm al-Fahm

HaShalom Stadium in Umm al-Fahm holds under six thousand, a size that suits a club whose ambitions have rarely stretched beyond the lower tiers of Israeli football. It is also where the story keeps returning to itself: a ground built for a team that has twice had to start over.

Hapoel Umm al-Fahm was founded in 1966 by Ahmad Sadik. Financial trouble ended that first version of the club in 2009, and for two seasons its supporters played under the name Hapoel Bladi, an informal merger with a local rival that kept the team on the pitch until a proper re-establishment in 2011. The honours from before and after that gap sit oddly together on the same list: a Liga Artzit title in 1978-79, another in 2007-08, then a Liga Gimel championship in 2011-12.

Promotion to Liga Leumit followed in 2018-19, and the club has stayed there since, with a fifth-place finish in 2021-22 marking its high point at that level. The State Cup run of 2019-20 is the one still remembered: two goals down against Maccabi Tel Aviv, the reigning champions, in the last eight, and somehow they turned it round to win 3-2, before Maccabi Haifa closed the door on them in the next round.

Derbies here are local in the strictest sense, against Hapoel Ironi Arraba and Hapoel Baqa al-Gharbiyye. Ahmad Sadik's name is the one that has stayed with the club since 1966, the founder of a side that has had to be founded, in effect, twice.