FC Sevlievo

FC Sevlievo (Bulgarian: ФК Севлиево) is a Bulgarian association football club based in Sevlievo, which currently competes in the North-West Third League, the third tier of Bulgarian football league system. Their home ground is Stadion Rakovski, which currently has a capacity of 5000.

Founded as SC Rakovski in December 1922, the club was declared bankrupt in 2015 and re-founded as FC Sevlievo.

History

Rakovski

The club was founded on 29 December 1922 as SC Rakovski by a group of football enthusiasts of the Association for Tourism in Rositsa. Upon its formation, Ivan Tsochev, Boris Popivanov, and Serafim Ganushev became the president, secretary, and steward respectively. Brothers Sokurov, who played on the team, chose to name it Rakovski in honor of the Bulgarian national hero Georgi Sava Rakovski. They played their first game against Viktoria F.C. from Veliko Tarnovo, ending in a 1:1 draw.

After the reorganization of some of the sports associations in Bulgaria, some voluntary sports organizations arose in Sevlievo. The most popular was DSO Red Flag (Bulgarian: ДСО Червено знаме). In 1957, every voluntary sports organizations union in VSO Rakovski. Two years later Rakovski was admitted into the Bulgarian Third Division. In 1968 the club was promoted for the first time to B PFG, the second division of Bulgarian football.

In 1980, the club was renamed F.C. Rositsa.

Vidima-Rakovski

The team became known as PFC Vidima-Rakovski in 1997, after the union between F.C. Rakovski and F.C. Vidima, a little club of the Vidima Standart Ideal works. In the next 1998-99 season, the team won the Cup of Amateur Bulgarian league.

In the 2002-03 season, with Plamen Markov as head coach, promotion to first A Pfor of Vidima-Rakovski. Gerasim Zakov scored the club’s first top league goal in a 3-3 draw against Lokomotiv Sofia. The 2003-04 campaign, remembered as the first A PFG season in the club's history ended in a goo