Cangzhou Mighty Lions F.C.

Cangzhou Mighty Lions Football Club is a Chinese professional football club based in Cangzhou, Hebei, that competes in the Chinese Super League, the top tier of Chinese football. Cangzhou Mighty Lions plays its home matches at the Cangzhou Stadium, located within Yunhe District. Their majority shareholder is the Yongchang Real Estate, who own 70% of the shares of the club. History On February 25, 2011, the club was founded by Smart Hero International Trading Limited, Xiamen Dongyuhang Import & Export Co., Ltd., Xiamen City HS Sheng Industrial Co., Ltd., and Xiamen City Shengxin Metal Products Co., Ltd., on the basis of local amateur club Xiamen Dongyuhang, which just won the runners-up spot of the China Amateur Football League last year, as Fujian Smart Hero F.C.. Within their debut season, they played in the China League Two division within the 2011 league season, where their home uniforms were yellow tops and black shorts. Fujian, in their first season, would win promotion to the 2012 China League One division via the League One relegation play-off in which Fujian beat Guizhou Zhicheng 6–5 in a penalty shootout. In the 2012 China League One campaign, Xu Hui was appointed as manager and he would lead the club to a third-place finish. This saw Yongchang Real Estate becoming interested in the team and they bought 70% shares of the club, which officially went through on January 18, 2013. The club moved to Hebei Province's capital city Shijiazhuang into the Yutong International Sports Center. They changed the club's colors to blue and the team's name into Shijiazhuang Yongchang Junhao F.C.. On December 27, 2013, Yongchang Real Estate bought the remaining 30% shares of the club and on February 24, 2014, Shijiazhuang Yongchang Junhao F.C. changed their name to Shijiazhuang Yongchang F.C.. In the 2014 league season, Shijiazhuang Yongchang won promotion to the top tier for the first time in their history when they came runners-up within their division. The club's first act within the top flight was to change their English name to Shijiazhuang Ever Bright F.C. (while their Chinese name still remained as 石家庄永昌) in January 2015. The club's debut season within the top tier saw the club's manager Yasen Petrov guiding the team to seventh in the league and safely away from relegation at the end of the 2015 league season.