Saturday, January 17, 2009

Finally, at home – Bulgaria. Levski-Spartak made a double, winning both the championship and the cup. But I was with mixed feeling… it was my club and it was not. A year earlier, in the middle of the season, Bulgarian football was ‘reorganized’. Meaning, out of the blue few clubs, mostly from Sofia, were amalgamated. My Levski was merged with Spartak and a third division club – Sportist (Kremikovtzi, Sofia’s suburb). The new club was named Levski-Spartak. It was a heavy blow… Spartak were the Police club. Levski was traditionally the people’s club… The whole story is worth telling, but not now. Suffice to say that the merger alienated many old fans, including my father. They stopped going to the stadium and if watching the team at all, it was only on TV. I followed to some point – until I left the country in the late 1980s, I went to see no more than 20 live Levski’s matches.
Levski-Spartak, champions in 1970.
Second row, left to right: G. Kamensky, M. Gaydarsky, D. Zhechev, Al. Kostov, G. Asparukhov, R. Vitlacil (Czechoslovakia) – coach, Iv. Zdravkov, St. Peshev, R. Goranov.
First row: St. Aladzov, Tz. Vesselinov, Sl. Stoilov, P. Kirilov, B. Mikhailov, P. Panov, N. Kotkov, V. Mitkov, St. Pavlov, Y. Kirilov.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Vesselin

    I hope that you are still able to view this message. I was wondering whether you would be prepared to correspond with me via email regarding a project that I am working on regarding a match between Bulgaria and Great Britain that took place in Sofia in 1955. It was an Olympic qualifier. I am looking for a Bulgarian perspective on the match and wonder if you could help please?

    My email address is steveringwood77@gmail.com

    I hope to hear from you.

    Best wishes
    Steve Ringwood.

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  2. Hi Vesselin
    I hope you get this message.. So I was wondering if you have any information about the Tashkent based club in the 1970s.. Pakhtakor? My email address is bsong65@gmail.com I know they played a series of matches in Bulgaria.. Im actually concentrating on a Korean player named Mikhail An.
    Any help would be grateful.

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