Football Club Karpaty Lviv (Ukrainian: Футбольний клуб «Карпати» Львів [kɐrˈpɑtɪ ˈlʲwiu̯]) is a Ukrainian professional football club based in Lviv.
History
Karpaty is one of the three surviving Ukrainian football team created in the Soviet Union that did not participate in the Football Championship of the Ukrainian SSR along with Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk.
Early years (1963–68)
The team of Karpaty was founded on January 18, 1963. In 1962 Silmash Lviv won the championship and cup of the Lviv Oblast ( see Lviv Oblast Football Federation) and, thus, obtained the rights to participate in the Soviet Class B championship (Soviet First League). However, in 1963 the Football Federation of USSR conducted another reorganization in football national tournaments creating the Second Group of Class A and Class B became the third tier where a berth was reserved for a team from Lviv. At that time the best city team was SKA Lvov, players of which did not stay there for long, leaving it at the end of their military service, while the best would be drafted to CSKA Moscow. In light of that the city administration decided to create a civilian team, independent from the Soviet military.
In December 1962, in the building of Regional Council of Trade Unions (at prospekt Shevchenka), the head of the council and the regional football federation, Hlib Klymov, invited coaches of Silmash – Yuri Zubach (former player of Ukraina Lwów) and Vasyl Solomonko, as well as the director of the city plant "Lvivsilmash" Ivan Kalynychenko to discuss a new name for the club. The name Silmash was recognized as inadequate for participation on such a level. Among the proposed names were Spartak, Dynamo, Halychyna, while at the end they agreed upon the regional toponym Karpaty (Carpathians).
