Teams, tales and tips – a guide to the local game
Co-host of Euro 2012, stage for the Europa League final a decade or so later, the bustling Baltic port of Gdańsk enjoys an international status way above its achievements at domestic level.
Flagship club Lechia, promoted from Poland’s second-tier I Liga in 2024, have only won a cup or two and made next to no progress in Europe. Formed a few weeks after World War II – which all began on the waterfront here at Westerplatte – the briefly named BOP Baltia Gdańsk have spent more seasons outside Poland’s top flight than in it.
Lechia gained their current name, as well as their green colours, from Lviv, whose Polish citizens had been expelled by Stalin in a lopsided population exchange. In what is today Ukraine but was, after 1945, the USSR, Lechia Lwów had been the first Polish professional football club, based at what was the cradle of the Polish game.
More than 800km from home, the Lviv exiles moved into the ground built by local Germans before the war, when Gdańsk was the Free City of Danzig, and Poles were in the minority. The new club’s home until 2011, the Lechia Stadion is now a monument to its heritage in the form of the Avenue of Stars, portraits of 21 key players, a couple of whom played for Gdańsk against the Juventus of Zbigniew Boniek and Paolo Rossi here in 1983.
A crowd of 35,000 gathered here that sunny September afternoon, three times more than the current capacity of the venue used by Lechia Gdańsk Ladies and, until recently, the men’s reserve team.
With stands and seats of Lechia green, the stadium looks for all the world like an atmospheric little ground of the radio era. Its pre-Lechia legacy, however, is tainted by Nazi rule, swastikas fluttering over the stands until 1945.
Nearly 70 years later, the German national team used the stadium and its grass pitch for training matches, having chosen Gdańsk for its base camp for Euro 2012.
A gleaming golden dome created for the same tournament, the Stadion Gdańsk, aka Polsat Plus Arena, is as far from Lechia’s old ground as you can get. Perhaps not so much geographically – it’s 2km away, closer to the Westerplatte war memorial marking the 1939 invasion – but these two footballing landmarks are a century and a world apart.
Known to Germans as Danzig, Gdańsk had been part of the Kingdom of Poland until being annexed by Prussia in the late 1700s. Subsequently subsumed into a unified Germany, with its majority German-speaking population Gdańsk became the Free City of Danzig after 1919 when Poland regained its independence.
Overseen by the League of Nations, Danzig had its own currency, flag and parliament but the rise of Nazism and strong anti-Polish sentiment saw Germans re-establish their authority from the later 1920s onwards.
This also included football, of course. English sailors had brought the game to Gdańsk in the late 1800s. German and Polish sports clubs were already in place when in 1903, the first football match was played between Fußball-Club Danzig and regional rivals Königsberg, now Kaliningrad and part of Russia.
German and Polish teams developed independently of each other. The debutants of 1903 changed their name to BuEV Danzig two years later, reflecting the focus on ball games and ice skating. In 1908, they reached the final of the Baltic Football Championship, involving teams in Prussia and Pomerania, one of eight regional tournaments across pre-World War I Germany.
Before 1914, BuEV played in five of the six Baltic finals, only managing to beat key rivals Königsberg once, in 1912. This gave the red-and-blacks passage to the all-German finals, and a 7-0 whitewash by reigning national champions Viktoria Berlin. From 1916, their home ground was the Reichskolonie-Sportplatz, close to today’s Stadion Gdańsk, the other side of Jana Kochanowskiego from Stadion Expo station.
Back then there were relatively few football pitches for a community of Gdańsk’s size. With the new city state of Danzig founded 1919, its parliament allotted half a million marks to sports infrastructure. Two grounds would be built. One, at Bischofsberg, Biskupia Górka to Poles, would become the home of BuEV’s city rivals, SC Preußen Danzig. A football team formed in 1909, ‘SC Prussia’ dated back to 1860 as a multi-sports club.
Rising up behind today’s Gdańsk Śródmieście station, Biskupia Górka, ‘Bishop’s Hill’ is, as its name suggests, steep, and the site of a former fortress to boot. Levelling the land and preparing it for football took four years and a narrow-gauge railway to take away the rubble from the fortifications.
By 1925, it was ready. Also by then, SC Preußen Danzig had emerged as top dogs in town, winning the district league three times from 1921 to enter the Baltic Football Championship. VfB Königsberg proved too strong every season.
For a short time, the pitches at Biskupia Górka were shared between SC Preußen and BuEV Danzig before the stronger team took priority, the ground referred to locally as Preußenplatz. It was in operation right up to the early autumn of 1944, and used by Allied prisoners of war. There’s little to see of Biskupia Górka today except for its administrative office at Biskupia 24c
The other ground commissioned by the Danzig Parliament was Kampfbahn Niederstadt, opened the same year as Biskupia Górka, 1925. It’s not clear when it started to be used by Post SG Danzig, the Postal Workers’ team, but the yellow-and-blues played Gauliga Danzig-Westpreußen fixtures here in the 1940s before the club, like all German ones, folded in 1945.
That wasn’t the end of the ground, though. On what is now called Zawodników, by Brama Żuławska just east of the city centre, the Stadion im Zbigniewa Podleckiego was given concrete terracing, a marathon gate and a grandiose colonnade in classic Communist style in the 1950s.
Today it’s mainly given over to Poland’s most popular sport of speedway, and was named after a world champion rider who died in Gdańsk in 2009, five long decades after a car crash had left him paralysed from the waist down.
Two years after the opening of Bischofsberg and the Kampfbahn Niederstadt, the authorities built the Jahnkampfbahn, today’s Lechia Stadion on Traugutta. Anti-Polish sentiment was rising and a customs war brewing between the Poland and this self-contained city state now full of disaffected Germans.
Opened in 1927, the stadium belonged to no club but was used for showcase fixtures under German auspices. For more than a decade from 1934, it carried the name of one man: Albert Forster. Gauleiter of what was then the Free City of Danzig, Forster led the takeover of the city by the organisation that had appointed him back in 1930: the Nazi Party.
As well as carrying out the ethnic cleansing and mass murders of Poles and Jews, this Bavarian planned ambitious urban development for Gdańsk, with a theatre, opera house and the Albert-Forster-Stadion.
Revamped to reflect the Nazi aesthetic, the stadium hosted the home leg of the East Prussia regional final of the German Championship in 1934, won by SC Preußen Danzig, and the same prestigious fixture involving BuEV Danzig in 1938.
After 1939, both teams joined the newly formed Gauliga Danzig-Westpreußen, but not, of course, the Polish team that had competed in the previous Gauliga Ostpreußen during the 1930s: Gedania.
Both the Jahnkampfbahn, aka the Albert-Forster-Stadion, and Gedania’s ground on Tadeusza Kościuszki, were located in Wrzeszcz, a large area of western Gdańsk that stretches all the way up to the modern-day Polsat Plus Arena.
Its Polish enclave was Polenhof, hemmed in by the main avenue, Aleja Legionów. Formed in 1922 after the first flush of Polish independence, but within the German-dominated Free City of Danzig, Gedania had historic links to Sokół. A cultural movement active among Slavs in this part of Europe, ‘Falcon’ promoted physical purity, with patriotic undertones. It harked back to the Habsburg era of the 1890s when Polish, and particularly Czech, national sentiments were repressed by Austrian rule.
Given the Latin name for Gdańsk and the Polish colours of white and red, Gedania competed with their German counterparts from across Prussia and Pomerania. While in principle, the club welcomed German players to join, in practice, Danzig’s unique legal status allowed it to promote Polish patriotism at a time of growing German nationalism in a German-dominated city.
Dock workers, railwaymen, postmen, hundreds of local Poles joined Gedania whether they wanted to play sports or take part in cultural activities.
Gedania’s base developed into a substantial sports complex and a hub of Polish activity, alongside the parish church, overseen by priest Bronisław Komorowski. As their footballers were just a notch below SC Preußen, BuEV and the other prominent German club, police team Schutzpolizei Danzig, Gedania were the only Polish club to join the newly formed Gauliga Ostpreußen from 1933.
In theory, given that Gedania remained in the top tier right up to 1939 and made the regional play-offs the previous two seasons, this all-Polish side could have qualified for the prestigious German national finals, but this awkward situation never arose.
After September 1, 1939, under the orders of Albert Forster, all Polish institutions were shut down. Nazi groups ransacked the club’s ground, destroying the facilities and trophies. The club chairman was shot, many other members were taken to concentration camps, most to the nearest one, the notorious Stutthof, and never returned. Father Komorowski was murdered.
While all this was happening, Danzig’s leading clubs continued to compete in the Gauliga Danzig-Westpreußen, the Albert-Forster-Stadion staging prestigious matches. Remarkably, SC Preußen and BuEV continued to play until the late autumn of 1944.
All German institutions were shut down the following spring as liberation allowed Gdańsk to become part of Poland for the first time since the late 1700s. Repatriated Poles filled the city. Albert Forster attempted to take refuge in the British-occupied zone of Germany but was handed over to the Polish authorities. He was hanged in Warsaw in 1952.
The stadium that had carried his name was rebuilt and made ready for newly formed Lechia Gdańsk, comprised of players from Lechia Lwów. A square near Gedania’s old ground on Tadeusza Kościuszki was named after Father Komorowski. He was later honoured with a statue depicting him as a prisoner of a concentration camp, the letter P covering his heart to indicate his nationality.
In the weeks following liberation, a team of Soviet soldiers played against a Polish military XI, Pogoń, the first match staged in Gdańsk since the conflict.
Reactivated in 1945, Gedania moved back into their old ground, gradually rebuilt. That same year, shipyard team Stoczniowiec was formed, first as KS Nit Gdańsk then as Stal, and then as Polonia. With Lechia and Gedania, the dockers made up the trio of local rivals whose meetings were among the many Gdańsk derbies in the immediate post-war period. The names of their opponents reflect their activity, either naval (Bałtyk, Flota Nowy Port) or military (Milicyjny, WKS 16 Dywizji). If any exist, their club badges would be collector’s items.
Once a sense of normality returned to civilian life, and a national Polish league re-established, it was first the traditional side, Gedania, who competed against teams from Warsaw and Kraków. But the pedigree of the former Lwów players at Lechia soon told, and the White-Greens became the dominant team in town.
These early golden years of the 1950s and 1960s were also the formative ones of the city’s most famous political figures. Solidarity leader and president of Poland post-1990 independence Lech Wałęsa and current prime minister Donald Tusk are Lechia men through and through. Paweł Adamowicz, the free-thinking city mayor stabbed to death at a Christmas charity event in 2019, would also have celebrated Lechia’s trumphs, such as the cup win of 1983.
By then, Gedania had long been mired in the third and fourth tiers, and they were would be no derbies with Lechia for half a century. The former cup winners had struggled in the free-market economy of the 1990s and had to merger with other lesser lights, including Polonia. Starting out again in the sixth tier in 2001 allowed Lechia to share the same pitch as Gedania while climbing back up the league ladder.
Founded in 2001, the wonderfully named Flotylla Gdańsk merged with Gedania in 2003. A reformed club emerged in 2006, GKS Gedania 1922, the name a nod to their heroic predecessors of a century earlier.
In 2012, Gedania left Tadeusza Kościuszki for a new complex at Aleja Hallera 201, close to the Grudziądzka 02s tram stop on lines 3 and 6. There, the smart, daily opening Gastro Gedania 1922 shows photos from the Danzig period and serves a ground holding a few hundred spectators.
The team currently competes in Poland’s III Liga, Group 2. The ground at Tadeusza Kościuszki 49 is still standing, but only just, with debate still ongoing as to its future. In May 2022, it was added to the city’s register of monuments, so outright demolition might be tricky.
Re-renamed Stoczniowiec in 2020, the former Polonia play fourth-tier football at a modest ground at Marynarki Polskiej 177, close to the Stocznia Północna 01 stop on tramlines 2, 7, 8 and 10. You’ll find it on the other side of the main road from Lechia’s old ground, both served by Gdańsk Politechnika station on the SKM train line that links Gdańsk Główny main station, match-day Gdańsk Stadion Expo by the Polsat Plus Arena, and the coastal destinations of Sopot and Gdynia.
Also referred to as the MOSiR Stadion, an acronym of Miejskiego Ośrodka Sportu i Rekreacji, Central City Sports & Recreation Stadium, the ground hosted its last Lechia match at the end of the 2010-11 season.
The hosts had climbed back up to the top-flight Ekstraklasa and that spring had reached the semi-finals of the Polish Cup. The step up to the third largest stadium in Poland, the Stadion Gdańsk, was not such a giant one, although crowds have averaged around 15,000 since.
The new arena opened in September 2011, suitably enough with a friendly between Poland and Germany. Fixtures at Euro 2012, for which it was built, included Spain’s wins over Ireland and Croatia, and Germany’s over Greece. Poland have also played there ten times to date, though the only competitive international was under pandemic restrictions against Italy in 2020.
The stadium had originally been selected to stage the Europa League final that year too, which was moved to 2021, when Villarreal beat Manchester United in a 22-kick shoot-out decided by the goalkeepers, the Spanish side triumphant.
The old Lechia Stadion, its Traugutta address commemorated by the T29 fans’ bar at the Stadion Gdańsk, is sadly underused, although its long wall of Lechia murals attract many a curious groundhopper, perhaps unaware of its grim Nazi past.
Getting Around
Arriving in town, local transport and tips
Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport is 15km (9.5 miles) west of town, with regular trains to Gdańsk Wrzeszcz (10min journey time), where you should change for Gdańsk Główny main station (5mins). Tickets from platform machines are 5.50zł/€1.30 for the whole journey, 13zł/€3 if you’re using the InterCity service.
Alternatively, bus 210 currently runs at 44mins past the hour direct to Gdańsk (‘Dworzec’) Główny, journey time 40mins. Tickets (4.80zł/€1.10, 24hr 22zł/€5) are sold from the machine by the airport bus stop by the P1 car park, and other major stops and stations.
These are also valid for all buses and trams but not the SKM regional train line that serves the three coastal cities of Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia from Gdańsk Główny, running every 10-15mins.
A single ticket within Gdańsk is 4.80zł/€1.10 from machines on platforms. On match and event days, a branch veers off at Gdańsk Politechnika to Gdańsk Stadion Expo station by the Polsat Plus Arena – otherwise you need a bus, tram or taxi. It’s too far to walk from town though the city centre itself, with Gdańsk Główny station on its north-west corner, is pleasantly walkable.
Airport-recommended Neptun taxis (+48 196 86) should charge about 75zł/€17 from airport to town. City Taxi (+48 881 344 886) should be cheaper for quick hops around town or to the stadium.
Where to Drink
The best pubs and bars for football fans
The two main streets for bars are cobbled Długi Targ – home of pub-like U Szkota, urban brew bar Piwnica Rajców and whiskey-swigging Jack’s, all football-friendly – and trendier Piwna/Chlebnicka, where the party-focused Red Light Pub and cocktail spot Flisak ’76 attract a different kind of clientele.
Over on Świętojańska, attached to the hostel of the same name (see below Where to stay), Zappio is a great bar in its own right, overseen by the redoubtable Kate, serving craft beers and rare whiskies as a TV beams match action.
Szeroka is another happy hunting ground on a bar crawl. Taking the beer part of the terrible pun in its name seriously, LAbeerYNT provides an atmospheric, well-run outlet for regional craft breweries such as Mały Kurek from Wrocław and Szałpiw from Poznań, although the selection is always changing.
Further along Szeroka, the Grass Sports Bar stretches the Irish pub genre in a good way, showing live games in contemporary surroundings, showing you don’t have to go down the cod celtic route. They look after the Guinness, too, and the food’s decent.
Shamrock décor can be found at the Irish Pub Piwnica on Podgarbary, where Guinness-guzzling and match-watching take place in a vaulted, bare-brick hideaway in a little standalone house.
Over on the tip of Wyspa Spichrzów island, by the Radisson Hotel, the Celtic Pub allows you to watch the match in comfort, with a terrace near the waterfront for that nervous half-time smoke.
On the edge of the city centre, locals beat a path to bohemian Café Szafa on Podmurdze, with 3am closing at weekends, while Cooltura at Okopowa 7 keeps the party going until 5am with DJs and quality drinks.
Where to stay
The best hotels for the stadium and city centre
Visit Gdańsk has an excellent hotel database with online booking.
Just over the main road from the stadium, the functional but comfortable Hotel Arena Expo offers breakfast with reasonable rates and free parking. To stay near Główny main station, the four-star Scandic Gdansk offers a gym and top-class restaurant. Nearby, towards the water on Jana Hewellusza, the ibis and Mercure Gdansk Stare Miasto chains contain hundreds of upper mid-range rooms in a convenient Old Town location.
Further into the historic centre, the Wolne Miasto on Świętego Ducha fills a historic apartment building with 62 mid-range rooms.
For riverside views, you can’t beat the Hanza Hotel on Tokarska, a stylish four-star with a contemporary Polish restaurant and top-notch spa. Just over the water on Ołówianka island, the Królewski transforms an old granary into a comfortable and conveniently located hotel. Further along, named after the island, the Ołówianka B&B is even more striking, large rooms at fair prices behind a half-timbered façade.
The next island down, Wyspa Spichrzów, is where you find the Novotel Gdansk Centrum, offering terrace dining and paid-for parking. On the opposite bank overlooking the marina, underscored by local heritage, the Hotel Gdansk Boutique consists of a five-star lodging fashioned from a 17th-century granary, a restaurant, brew bar, whisky bar and spa, plus the four-star Marina Club Hotel alongside.
Further up waterfront Szafarnia by the tips of both islands, the Hotel Podewils Old Town Gdansk sits in an elegant property built by a stonemason beside his workshop in 1728, his coat of arms over the portal. Its ten rooms are each unique and the services offered here are private: sauna, tours and limousine transfers from the airport.
To stay close to the bar action in the Old Town, the Radisson Blu Hotel, Gdansk on Długi Targ houses 145 smart but affordable guest rooms, a restaurant, bar and gym. Right on Piwna itself is Artus, 50 comfortable rooms complemented by a restaurant-cum-music bar and, surprisingly, parking. A couple of doors down, the funky Stay Inn feels urban and contemporary, just like its in-house restaurant, Mono Kitchen.
Also known for its bar (see above Where to drink), the Dom Zachariasza Zappio (+48 784 041 226) near the bar quarter at Świętojańska 49 offers modest lodging at wallet-pleasing prices.
