Pogoń Grodzisk MazowieckiPogoń Grodzisk Mazowiecki spent a century as a modest lower-league side before delivering, in September 2024, one of the biggest shocks in the history of the Polish Cup - eliminating top-flight Lechia Gdańsk on penalties while still playing in the second tier. The Grodziski Klub Sportowy Pogoń was founded in July 1922, when a group of boys kicking a rag ball on a local meadow found their enthusiasm channelled by Henryk Poczekalewicz, a Grodzisk resident who organised the club's founding meeting and became its first chairman. For most of the twentieth century the club remained rooted in regional football, its most notable figure being Władysław Soporek, a Grodzisk-born forward who played for Pogoń between 1938 and 1939 and again from 1946 to 1948, before going on to represent Poland twice and become the Ekstraklasa's top scorer with ŁKS Łódź in 1958. The club's first breakthrough came in 1958, when it won promotion to what was then Poland's third tier - the equivalent of today's second division - a level it would not reach again for over half a century.
Decades of oscillation between regional leagues followed, with the club briefly returning to the third tier between 2011 and 2015 before dropping back down. A sustained revival began in the 2020s: in the 2020-21 season Pogoń dominated Group I of the III liga, sealing promotion with two games to spare after thrashing Jagiellonia Białystok's reserve side 6-0. The club's greatest sporting moment, however, arrived on 24 September 2024, when - then playing in the II liga under coach Marcin Sasal - Pogoń drew 1-1 with Lechia Gdańsk in the first round of the Polish Cup and went on to win the resulting penalty shootout 4-3, sending a top-division club crashing out to a side two tiers below it. The result made national headlines and drew a reaction even from former Poland captain Zbigniew Boniek.
Riding that wave of momentum, Sasal's side went on to secure back-to-back promotions, first to the II liga and then, in the 2024-25 season, to the I liga - the highest level the club has ever reached in its 103-year history. The red-and-whites, nicknamed Pogoniarze, maintain a fierce regional rivalry with nearby Znicz Pruszków and play their home matches at the Municipal Stadium on Aleja Mokronoskich in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, though league licensing requirements have at times forced the club to host matches in neighbouring Pruszków.