Pogoń Lwów is one of the oldest Polish sport clubs. It was established in 1904 as a club at the 4th Grammar School in Lvov. In the mid-war period, it was one of the best award-winning Polish football clubs. The best sport achievements of Pogoń Lwów before the war were:
- 4 times football Poland champion (1922, 1923, 1925, 1926)
- 3 times football Poland vice-champion (1932, 1933, 1935)
- Non-official Poland Championship: 1924
- U-19 Junior Poland Championship: 2nd place in 1937
- Galicia Championship: 3rd place in 1913
- Ice-hockey Poland Championship: 1st place: 1933
- 2nd place: 1929, 1930
- 3rd place: 1927
In 1938 the Polish Sports Associations awarded the Pogoń Lwów Club with the title “The best and the most deserved sport club in Poland”. The initiative of the Polish youth integration for sport was established in Lvov in 2007. The first football trainings started in the sport hall at the Lvov Medical University. In October 2009, thanks to efforts of the young Polish people living and studying in Lvov and thanks to support by the General Consulate of Poland in Lvov, the Lvov Pogoń Sport Club was reactivated.
The aim of the club is to work in Lvov, where Polish have lived for generations. The club policy is dedicated to education of young people, talented players, to make them stay in Lvov. The club members are proud of what is written in Polish language on their T-shirts, which is the original pre-war name “Pogoń Lwów” that after seventy years came back to the pitches in Lvov.
The Pogoń club is a Polish club and it plays as such in the Ukrainian sport world. Last year the senior team (finished the season 2017 with the 6th place in the 3rd football league – the fourth level) and the junior team won the 1st place in the junior 3rd league and it won the Junior Cup of Lvov District. Moreover, the Pogoń club organizes a football tournament “Polish Amateur League” with participation of amateur teams set up in Polish houses, catholic churches and schools in the Lvov district. There has been a Football School for children, acting within the Club for seven years, which is really popular.
As the reputed mid-war brand, the club is often invited to tournaments and friendly games with the most popular football clubs in Poland and Ukraine. In the last few years the team won friendly games with, among others, Cracovia, Korona Kielce, Warta Poznań, Podbeskidzie, Stal Mielec and Polonia Bytom, Resovia, ŁKS, Korona Kielce, Pogoń Siedlce.
The Pogoń Football School is attended by children from Polish schools in Lvov and Latin churches. The school is free of charge, all expenditures are paid by the club. The Pogoń football players are raised in a sport and patriotic atmosphere, they have opportunities to travel to Poland, get to know the country of their ancestors and they take an active part in culture events in Lvov, continuously developing their football skills. Last year the youngest players (years 2008-2009) won the Steelworker Cup in Kraków with participation of teams Wisła, Cracovia and Hutnik. An important event for the youngest players of the Pogoń club was the meeting with President of Poland Andrzej Duda during their training camp in Siedlce. The Pogoń players sang to President the anthem of “Pogoń” and told him about their daily activities in the club. The player get also involved in many events organized by the Polish groups in Lvov, through which they learn citizenship. The most important event this year was the annual action „Remembrance Light for the Łyczakowski Cemetery”.
The club tries to promote honourable Polish traditions in Lvov by get involved in many cultural initiatives such as organization of city games “In the streets of Lvov”, co-operation with students organizations or the annual participation in the Latest Polish Movies Review “Under the High Castle”. The Pogoń club players are social activists, if possible, they support amateur teams and Polish kindergartens and schools in the Lvov district. Since April 2017 they have been planning to re-establish another section – tourist, the club has been running the project “Pre-War tourist traditions – following the paths of the old Main Carpathian Route under the name of Marshall Józef Piłsudski”. Together with the Centre of Polish Culture and European Dialogue in Stanisławów with the support of the Consulate of Poland in Lvov it organizes one-day trips to the Carpathian Mountains to teach history and patriotism. In October 2017 during the Review of the Latest Polish Movies “Under the High Castle”, the members of the club organized an exhibition “The Old Lvov Sport World: people and places”, which was presented in Lvov, Zabrze, Katowice, Bytom, Tychy. Moreover, the club has been awarded two times by the General Consulate of Poland in Lvov as the “best Polish organization of the Lvov district”.
The club’s dream is to build its own pitch, because all sport and administration facilities are rented.
