In the year 2006 Cracovia celebrated her centenary. During these 100 years, full of emotions, successes and defeats, the club became an important part of the city of Kraków, its landscape and history. After all, Cracovia means Kraków. Our Fan-Club presents a text describing the first 15 years of this club; these years are without doubt crucial for the history and can be seen as the “golden era”. Although Cracovia is a multi-section club, i.e., many disciplines of sport are practiced in the club, this this will focus on the oldest and most popular section – football.

The beginnings of football in Kraków date back to the last decades of the XIX century, when Henryk Jordan, the professor of the Jagiellonian University, created a park for outdoor activities. The park itself is nowadays named after its founder. Since the opening in 1889 it was a popular place to play sports on one of twelve fields designed there. In 1891 the first football match was played and since then the game gained popularity among the people of Kraków. Later some footballers moved to Błonia (the Commons), a huge greenfield next to the park – a perfect place to play football. It must be noted though, that football of these days had not so much in common with football of our days, as there were no uniformed rules of the game. Also the football pitches of the early days had different sizes and shapes (sic!).
In those days Poland was partitioned between Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary. The part under Habsburg rule was the one with the biggest political freedom, Poles could create many organizations and the police control was not as tight as in the other parts. This benefited in many fields, e.g., culture or sports. It was Lwów where first football clubs were founded: Sława (quickly renamed to Czarni), Lechia and Pogoń were founded in the years 1903-04. The impulse to institutionalize football soon came to Kraków – the symbolic date is June 4th 1906, when Czarni and Lechia came to Kraków to play exhibition games against local teams, which were still not organized into clubs. These games motivated some players to create their own club. On June 12th 1906 an announcement was published in the Nowa Reforma newspaper, which stated, that the “Academic Football Club” was founded; the club was soon baptized “Cracovia”. It was Józef Lustgarten, the team’s goalkeeper, who invented the name. Therefore July 13th 1906 is the founding date of Sports Club Cracovia.
The team originally played in white shirts with blue sashes and black shorts, but after a big tournament held in November the colors of the shirts changed to deep-blue, which is the color of Kraków. In the tournament Cracovia finished second to the Szeligowski’s team, which soon became known as White&Reds. It was Tadeusz Kończyński who sponsored the outfits for the participants of the tournament and the winning team chose those in the patriotic colors. When in 1907 Cracovia merged with White&Reds the team’s first kit became white and red stripes and the second kit was blue. Since then Cracovia is known as “Pasy” - “the Stripes”. The year 1907 saw one more merger: for some weeks Wisła, a club founded some months after “Pasy”, which nowadays is Cracovia’s biggest rival, joined the older club as the reserve team. But Wisła quickly split and went home.
In 1908 William Calder, an English-teacher working for Berlitz Language School, joined Cracovia. As an Englishman and as a former player of Fulham London, he was far more experienced in the football matters that his colleagues from Kraków. He brought fresh ideas and turned the club into real professional one. He introduced regular trainings, tactical thought, brought the first sponsor to the club (count Wodzicki), wrote club’s statute and, together with Lustgarten and Wojciech Wojakowski, designed club’s coat of arms: the famous flag with four white and three red stripes. It is significant, that the badge is designed by an English protestant, a Polish catholic and a Pole of Jewish origin (Lustgarten). Cracovia has always been a tolerant club and accepted players of all nationalities and religions, which, at a time, was not as obvious as it is today. Among her players there were Poles, Austrians, Czechs and Hungarians, noblemen, students, professors, clerks, mechanics or painters. For sure Cracovia had benefited from her openness, diversity and tolerance.
Naturally, these are the matches which are the essence of any club. The first game in the records was played in September of 1906 against White&Reds, the result was goalless. Other important games of the early years were those played against Wisła. The first match that we know about was played in September of 1908, the result was 1:1. Since then 172 games were played, which makes the Kraków’s derbies the oldest in Poland and one of the oldest in the world. In the same year Cracovia faced her first “international” (i.e., not-Polish) rival: Troppauer SV from Opawa in the Czech part of the Austrian monarchy. Pasy lost the game 2:4, but won the re-match in Kraków 5:2. Another significant game was held in 1911, when Cracovia faced the representation of Austria. Although the game was lost 3:6, Cracovia’s good performance was rewarded with the title of a “first-class team”. This was a genuine honor, as only 16 teams in the empire had this title. In the same year Cracovia laid foundations to the Polish Football Association, which was an autonomous part of the Austrian FA, a member of which Pasy were since 1910. When Poland regained independence in 1918 and when a truly independent Polish FA (PZPN) was created in 1919, its headquarters for many years still remained in Kraków, and Cracovia was the most influential club in PZPN.
For any football club it is essential to have a stadium. In the beginnings Cracovia played matches in the Jordan’s park, at Błonia, or wherever it was possible. But in 1912 a stadium was built; this was the first club-owned stadium in Poland. This stadium, naturally reconstructed during the years, is the oldest existing stadium in Poland. Since 1912 only twice Cracovia had to move from today’s Kałuży Street. During the World War II and German occupation organized football games were illegal, therefore games were held in conspiracy around Kraków, mainly at the Juevenia field; in 1963 the stadium burned down and for the reconstruction period Pasy moved to Wawel’s stadium at Bronowicka Street.
Before the World War I, in 1913, the Championship of Galicja was organized. As Galician clubs were at that time the strongest of all Polish clubs, this could be seen as informal Championship of Poland. Four clubs took part: Cracovia, Wisła, Czarni and Pogoń. Cracovia won the Cup, being the only unbeaten team of the competition. It was the only edition of the Galicia Championship, as in 1914 the war broke out. During the wartime Cracovia, in contrast to Wisła, did not suspend activities and played many friendly games.
In independent Poland Kraków was the center of Polish football. After the creation of PZPN in 1919, the Championships were organized in 1920, unfortunately interrupted by the war against Soviet Union. Anyhow, Małopolska region was the only one, where the first stage of the Championship was completed, and Cracovia was the winner. In the following year Cracovia again won the regional stage, and did that in some style, without loosing a single point. In the national final stage Cracovia faced Pogoń Lwów, Łódzki KS, Polonia Warszawa and Warta Poznań, The first goal of the campaign was scored by Stanisław Mielech in 2:0 victory against Pogoń, which seemed to be the most serious of the rivals. Later Pasy easily beat ŁKS (7:1) and Polonia (3:0; the first three games were played in Kraków). In the fourth game Cracovia played against Warta in Poznań and the result was 2:2, although Ludwik Gintel missed the penalty in 87th minute. Had Gintel scored, Cracovia would have won all the games in the final stage, as Pasy won the subsequent four games. Winning the Championship without losing nor drawing any game – this would be a fantastic achievement and a record result in the history of football. But even with this one draw Cracovia, without any doubt, won the first Poland’s Championship in style. That team, which included such players as Gintel, Mielech, Tadeusz Synowiec (the captain), Leon Sperling, Bolesław Kotapka and, above all, the top scorer and the icon of the club Józef Kałuża, deserves the status of the legendary one.

———————-
After 15 years of existence Cracovia became the first football champion of Poland. In the following years of the mid-war period, under chairman Edward Cetnarowski, Pasy won the championship three more times (1930, 1932, 1937) and confirmed the status of one of the best Polish clubs. During the time of Nazi occupation Cracovia, together with other Kraków’s clubs, took part in illegal competitions, giving the testimony of courage and resistance. After the World War II Cracovia won the championship one more time, in 1948, beating Wisła in the play-off final 3:1. This is, so far, the last Cracovia’s football championship. Later Pasy were underachieving, because of being disfavored by the communist regime; in the 70s the team plummeted as low as down to the 4th league, and for many years, until recently, only sporadically did escape from the abyss of lower leagues. But during all the time it was one of the leading Polish clubs, the legendary “founding father” of Polish football, and, because Lwów is no longer in Poland, the oldest Polish club.

***

Based on:
Chemicz, Stanisław, 1982, Piłka nożna w okupowanym Krakowie, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie,
Gowarzewski, Andrzej, Nowak, Marian Grzegorz, Szmel, Bożena Lidia, 2006, Cracovia 1906-2006: dzieje piłkarskiej legendy, Katowice: Wydawnictwo GIA
Kukulski, Janusz, 1986, 80 lat KS Cracovia 1906-1986, Kraków: KS Cracovia
Pampuch, Marek, 2006, Pany 1906-2006. Jubileusz Stulecia KS Cracovia, Kraków: KS Cracovia