Suwon City FC

Early years: semi-professional

Suwon city government decided to create a semi-professional level football club that would link school-level football clubs within the city and Suwon Samsung Bluewings, which is a professional club based in the city. On 15 March 2003, Suwon City Football Club was officially formed. The club appointed Kim Chang-kyum as their manager and joined the semi-professional Korea National League, which was then called the K2 League.

They won their first trophy in 2004 by winning the Korean President's Cup National Football Tournament. Slowly, they rose to be strong contenders in the Korea National League as they reached the play-off on four occasions between 2005 and 2009, although they failed to lift the trophy on all four occasions. Finally, in the 2010 season, they became the league champions after beating Daejeon Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power 2–1 on aggregate in the final. Manager Kim Chang-kyum left the team after the 2011 season as his contract expired and Cho Deok-je, who had been managing the club's youth team, succeeded him.

Suwon FC era

On 9 December 2012, it was officially announced that the team would become fully professional. The club's name was also changed to Suwon FC and got an approval to join the professional K League. Suwon FC joined the second-tier K League Challenge in the 2013 season. Their debut season as a professional club was successful, as they finished fourth in the league and became the only K League Challenge club to reach the quarter-finals in the FA Cup.

The 2015 season was a milestone for the club. After finishing the regular season in third place, Suwon FC proceeded to the K League Challenge play-offs in which they eliminated Seoul E-Land and Daegu FC. In the promotion-relegation playoffs, Suwon then defeated top division side Busan IPark 3–0 on aggregate and won the promotion to the 2016 K League Classic.