Mariupol (football club)

Football club "Mariupol" was founded in 1960, when two amateur teams merged — "Avangard" (the city of Zhdanov, now Mariupol) and "Shakhtar" (urban-type settlement Rutchenkovo, now a suburb of Donetsk). The new team was named "Azovstal" after the name of the main metallurgical plant of the city. From 1960 to 1970, the team played in the USSR First League, the second most important (after the USSR Top League in those years called "Group A", "Group 1", "Class A", "Class 1") annual tournament of football teams of the Soviet Union, at that time called "Group B", "Group 2", "Class B", "Class 2". From 1971 to 1991, the team played in the Ukrainian zone of the Second League of the USSR, the tournament of this zone was also called the USSR Championship.

From 1992 to 1995, the team played in the Second League of Ukraine. In the summer of 1995, the Mariupol team merged with the Dynamo team (Lugansk).