The club was founded on 20 April 1920 in Bismarkhuta (German "Bismarckhütte", historically "Hajduki"), one of the many heavily industrialised municipalities in the eastern part of Upper Silesia, a disputed province between Poland and Germany. The main incentive was an appeal of the Polish Plebiscite Committee a few months earlier that led to creation of around one hundred sport associations. It took place in between the first and second Silesian Uprisings, to which the name "Ruch" is a supposed cover reference. The Polish word ruch is however also a common noun for "movement", not as strongly associated with Polishness as names of many other clubs established after the appeal (like Polonia, Powstaniec etc.). On the other hand, the club's first match, a 3:1 win against Orzeł Józefowiec, was played on 3 May 1920, the day of the first Polish Constitution. After the Upper Silesia plebiscite and the third Silesian Uprising in 1921 Bismarkhuta became part of Poland and the Silesian Voivodeship. The municipality was renamed to "Wielkie Hajduki" on 1 January 1923, hence the club was known as Ruch Wielkie Hajduki until another merger into the town Chorzów (created in 1934 from amalgamation of "Królewska Huta", "Chorzów" and "Hajduki Nowe") in the early 1939, with a short period in 1923 after the fusion with the older local German club "Bismarckhütter Ballspiel Club", when it was known as "Ruch BBC Wielkie Hajduki". After the merger the team played its games on the former BBC's pitch known as "na Kalinie". The popular nickname of the club "Niebiescy" ("The Blues") clung to the team already in the 1920s.