The club was founded as
Dalian Shipyards in 1955. After the 1982 season the local Dalian government took over its ownership and renamed it
Dalian Football Club to represent the city. The club immediately became a major force within the second tier and eventually win promotion to the top level in 1984 when they won the division title. For the next several seasons Dalian were predominantly top tier regulars except for one season in 1989 when they were in the second tier, however they quickly won promotion and soon went on to win their first domestic cup in 1992. Soon afterwards the
Chinese Football Association started to demand full professionalism and sponsorship from all the clubs in China. Dalian went on to be one of the first fully professionalised clubs in China on July 3, 1992. They gained sponsorship in 1993 from the
China Hualu group and then the
Dalian Wanda Group on March 8, 1994, who changed the club's name to
Dalian Wanda FC. In the inaugural fully professional
1994 league season, the club brought in former
Chinese national team manager
Zhang Honggen to coach the team and under his leadership guide the club to their first ever league title. The following season saw Zhang Honggen decide to not stay on as the club's manager and Dalian were unable to retain the league title, however the club eventually brought in former Chinese international player
Chi Shangbin into the club as their new manager. With
Wang Jianlin and the full support of his company the Dalian Wanda Group taking full ownership of the club, they started to build a football dynasty by winning the
1996 league season undefeated. Domestic dominance continued in the
1997 league season while Dalian narrowly just missed out on
1997–98 Asian Club Championship and Chi Shangbin decided to leave to take on a position with the Chinese national team. Despite this Dalian had a well-funded and prolific academy that produced numerous Chinese internationals such as
Zhang Enhua,
Li Ming and
Sun Jihai and with another former Chinese national team manager
Xu Genbao Dalian were easily able to replicate their success by winning the
1998 league title. In 2000 at the height of their success, Wang Jianlin decided to pull out from football after publicly criticizing Chinese referees for match fixing and he did not return to football until 2011 when his associated Wanda Group sponsored the
2011 Chinese Super League after former Chinese FA Vice-chairmen Xie Yalong and Nan Yong stood on trial for bribery. On January 9, 2000, Wang Jianlin sold Dalian to
Xu Ming and the Shide Group for 120 million
Yuan and the club's name was changed to
Dalian Shide. The new owners brought in
Serbian
Milorad Kosanović as their new manager and win another league title in the
2000 league season. Kosanović made the men's team by far the most successful team in Chinese football by winning the 2001, 2002 league title, 2001
Chinese FA Cup and just missing out on
2000–01 Asian Cup Winners' Cup during his reign. When Milorad Kosanović left to coach the
Serbia and Montenegro national under-21 football team the club eventually brought in
Vladimir Petrović who guided the team to the recently rebranded
2005 Chinese Super League title as well as 2005 Chinese FA Cup. With the retirement of striker
Hao Haidong and Vladimir Petrović leaving to take the Chinese national team management position, the club went through an inconsistent period due to team and coach changes. In 2008, Dalian Shide selected a number of players from its academy to play in a satellite team in the S.League in Singapore, called
Dalian Shide Siwu FC. On 14 February 2010,
Zhang Yalin died of
lymphoma in
Dalian,
Liaoning, aged 28, after a two-year-battle with the disease. On 30 November 2012, Dalian Shide were acquired by Aerbin Group and merged into
Dalian Aerbin F.C., although a lot of confusion and rumour surrounded the demise of Shide. ==Club name history==