FK Jà «rnieks is a Latvian football club based in Riga. Founded in 1959, it initially became defunct in 1997. In 2017, the club got reinstated in Latvia's Second League. Since 2023, it has been relegated to the Latvian Third League.
Most of the football clubs in the Soviet Union were attached to factories and the footballers were officially factory workers. With Latvian league clubs it was partly true, as footballers usually did indeed work part-time in the factories.
The club most widely known as Jà «rnieks was the football club of the Riga Factory of Ship Building and Repairing. In 1959 under the name KBRR the club made its début in the Riga championship, in 1962 it first played in the Latvian league where it got a respectable fifth-place finish, in 1963 it won the silver medals in the league, the following year the club's name was changed to KRR. Until 1967 the club finished in the upper half of the league every year. The club's leaders in the early years were the goal-scoring forward Polukarovs, goalkeeper Kurbatovs and former Daugava Riga footballer Vladimirs Amosovs.
In 1968 the club was renamed FK Jà «rnieks, the name that it had in its most glorious years. In 1970 it won the Latvian Cup for the first time by beating VEF Rëga. In 1972 in addition to the second cup victory Jà «rnieks also won its first (and only) Latvian league title. In those years the club was coached by M.Titarenko. The most notable footballers of Jà «rnieks in the end of the 1960s â beginning of the 1970s were V.Liholajs, Uhanovs, G.Zvejnieks and Vladimirs Trusovs.
However, after 1972 Jà «rnieks failed to remain one of the top football clubs in the Latvian league. Never again would it win medals of any sorts in the league, in the Latvian Cup it also never reached the finals again. From 1973 to 1991 it was a middle class team that hardly could compete with clubs like Torpedo Rëga, Elektrons Rëga, Enerãija Rëga, öëmi÷is Daugavpils and VEF Rëga. The best finish was achieved in 1986 when Jà «rnieks finished in the fourth place in the Latvian league. Un those later years the leading players with Jà «rnieks were A.Skudra, goalkeepers Gordejevs, Zaicevs and Raitis Gultnieks and strikers Mihails Juropovs and Jaroslavs Petrovs. For several years with Jà «rnieks also played VjaÃÂeslavs Fanduüs, mostly known as ice hockey player who played with Dinamo Riga and with Latvia national ice hockey team.
The best goalscorers in the club's history are Jaroslavs Petrovs and JevgÃÂà Âijs Samoiüenko both of whom scored more than 100 goals in the Latvian league.
After the 1991 season which Jà «rnieks finished in the 14th position it lost its place in the top Latvian league and was renamed to Decemvëri (possibly a reference to the Decemviri). In 1992, under the management of V. Pivovarovs, Jà «rnieks with quite a respectable squad which included Andrejs Oüeià Âiks, Dmitrijs Horoüskis and Dainis Deglis won the 1. lëga tournament and earned a promotion to Virslëga, but it refused from playing there because of financial difficulties and disappeared for a year completely. In 1994 it was back in 1. liga again as FK Jà «rnieks, in 1995 it won the 1.lëga tournament and earned promotion to Virslëga. The 1996 Virslëga season gave Jà «rnieks little to cheer about â 10th place from 10 clubs and relegation. In this year Andrejs Prohorenkovs made his debut with Jà «rnieks. In 1997 the club played again in 1. liga and after the season it went bankrupt.
After short stints of existence around 2004, with the team playing at least one season in the Second League. In 2017, the club was reborn and fielded a team in the Second League. After the 2022 season, it was relegated to the Third League.