Polonia Bydgoszcz
| ŻKS Polonia Bydgoszcz | |||||||||
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| Club information | |||||||||
| Track address | ul. Sportowa 2 Bydgoszcz |
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| Country | Poland | ||||||||
| Founded | 1920 | ||||||||
| Team manager | Zenon Plech | ||||||||
| Team captain | Andreas Jonsson | ||||||||
| League | 2nd League | ||||||||
| Website | Official website | ||||||||
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| Colours | White and Red | ||||||||
| Track size | 348 metres (381 yd) | ||||||||
| Track record time | 60.11 | ||||||||
| Track record date | 20 June 1999 | ||||||||
| Track record holder | Tomasz Gollob | ||||||||
| Major team honours | |||||||||
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Polonia Bydgoszcz is a Polish sports club based in Bydgoszcz most known for its speedway team ŻKS Polonia Bydgoszcz which currently race in the Speedway Ekstraliga (the top division). The club has won the Polish Speedway League Championship seven times, the latest in 2002, and European Team Championship three times, the latest in 2001. The club also has a football team who play in the lower leagues but in the past had more success.
BKS Polonia Bydgoszcz was founded on May 14, 1920, by Edmund Szyc, a sports enthusiast and official of Warta Poznan. Szyc, who had come to Bydgoszcz from Poznan in the early spring of 1920, wanted to create a sports organization with a patriotic spirit, based on Polish Army soldiers garrisoned in the city. The hues of Polonia were white-red-green (to commemorate Polish flag, plus green, the traditional colour of Warta Poznan’s jerseys).
In the Second Polish Republic, Polonia Bydgoszcz was one of the largest sports organizations in the nation. It had several departments, such as football, track and field, boxing, ice hockey, cycling, basketball, handball and volleyball. Among most notable athletes of that time were: Stanislaw Zakrzewski (high jumper), Klemens Biniakowski (runner, who participated in the 1928 Summer Olympics), Feliks Wiecek (cyclist, winner of the 1928 Tour de Pologne). Polonia’s football team were four times champions of Polish Pomerania, but failed to win promotion to the Ekstraklasa.
After World War Two, Polonia was reactivated on October 21, 1945. In 1947, its football team once again won local championships. On May 22, 1946, the speedway department was formed, but in 1949, the so-called First Polonia was dissolved by the Communist authorities, who disliked its prewar, bourgeoisie roots.
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