Patrick Comerford
I was saying some days ago (6 May 2025) how so many things in Greece seem two have two words for them in Greek, from two words for wine, οίνος (oinos) and κρασί; and two Greek words for bread, ἄρτος (artos) and ψωμί (psomi); to two Greek words for beer, μπύρα (bíra) and ζύθος (zythos) and two words for fish, ἰχθύς (ichthýs) and ψάρι (psari).
It seems every large town and city in Greece also needs to have two decent, rival football teams, if not three. In Iraklion are Ergotelis and OFI, and their generations-old rivalry, dating back to the 1920s, has been marked out by the cultural history and political upheavals in Greek life over the past century.
The two main football clubs in Athens, Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, are often referred to as ‘the Eternal Enemies’ because of their fierce rivalry. These two, along with AEK Athens, form the ‘Big Three’ (Οι Τρεις Μεγάλοι, Oi Treis Megaloi) in Greek football and are usually the main contenders for the title. Together they share a total of 80 out of 88 Greek Football Championships and they usually end up sharing the top three positions.
The two main football clubs in Thessaloniki are PAOK (Pan-Thessaloniki Athletic Club) and Aris Thessaloniki FC. Fixtures between these two rivals are known as the Thessaloniki Derby. PAOK’s success has also added them to ‘Big Three’, making it the ‘Big Four’ in Greece.
In Crete, the two Super League clubs based in Iraklion, Ergotelis and OFI, share a rivalry that can be traced back to social and political roots. Their first-ever game was a friendly match in 1929 that ended after 35 minutes. Ergotelis were ahead by 1-0 when the game was abandoned after violence broke out between the players.
OFI, officially ΠΑΕ Όμιλος Φιλάθλων Ηρακλείου 1925 (Iraklion Sportsmen’s Club 1925 FC), is part of the OFI multi-sports club. OFI is celebrating its centenary this year. It was founded in the winter of 1925 when a group of athletes who trained together in Iraklion formed a new club, Omilos Filathlon Irakleiou (OFI), or the Iraklion Sportsmen’s Club.
The team competes in the Super League Greece, the top division in the Greek football league, with home games at the Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium in Iraklion. OFI is the most successful club on Crete and the only one from the island to have played in European competitions. It is the team outside Athens and Thessaloniki with the most continuous appearances in the Greek first division. It has secured one Greek Cup (1986-1987) and one Balkans Cup (1989), and has competed seven times in UEFA competitions, making it the premier team outside Athens and Thessaloniki.
OFI’s home at the Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium (Γήπεδο Θεόδωρος Βαρδινογιάννης) was built in 1951 and is popularly known as Yedi Kule. The nickname Yedi Kule refers to the Heptapyrgion, a Byzantine and Ottoman fortress in Thessaloniki known as Yedi Kule in Turkish, which features in many Greek rebetika songs.
The stadium was built on the site of three cemeteries – Jewish, Orthodox and Armenian. When it was being built, workers discovered two large holes that had been gun emplacements left after the German occupation of Crete during World War II. The stadium has had several renovations, most notably in 2004, and 2018.
OFI ‘ultra’ fans, the ‘Snakes’, sit at Gate 4 while the visiting fans usually sit at Gate 1. Section 1 is what many call ‘the old man’s seats’ and is mostly filled with older people and fathers and sons who want to watch the game in peace. They are as far away as possible from the ultras (Sections 4-5) but relatively close to the away fans if they join (Section 6, north of 1).
The rivalry between OFI and Ergotelis intensified under the Greek military junta of 1967-1974, but this has been transformed from bitter rivalry to good-natured banter between neighbours in more recent decades.
Ergotelis Football Club ( ΠΑΕ Εργοτέλης) plays in the FCA Iraklion A1, the fourth tier of the Greek football league system, and home games are played at the Pankritio Stadium. But the club’s traditional home ground is the Nikos Kazantzakis Stadium, also known as Ergotelis Stadium or Martinengo Stadium. It is below the grave of Nikoas Kazantzakis on Martinengo Bastion on the Venetian fortifications surrounding the city.
Ergotelis was formed in 1929 and is part of Gymnastics Club Ergotelis (ΓΣ Εργοτέλης), named after the ancient Cretan Olympic runner. Ergotelis was formed mainly by refugees from Asia Minor, and the first recorded game was a 4-0 win for Ergotelis in a friendly against local side Leon (Λέων) at Chandax (Χάνδαξ) stadium on 4 August 1929.
Ergotelis has had nine appearances in the Greek Super League, and its best finish was in seventh place in 2013-2014 season. It has also won the Beta Ethniki, the second tier, once, in 2006. Its traditional colours are yellow and black.
From the beginning, Ergotelis was known for its progressive ideals. It was one of the first clubs in Greece to allow women into its sporting divisions and onto the board of directors. Those values and traditions are embedded in the club’s name and logo: Ergotelis of Knossos won twice the Olympic dolichos or running race at the 77th and 79th Olympics in 472 BCE and 464 BCE.
Although Ergotelis had won all races he ran in Crete, the local governor excluded him from the local team in the Olympics for political reasons and his liberal and radical ideology. Forced to leave Crete, Ergotelis moved to the Greek colony of Himera in Sicily. As a citizen of Himera, he won at the Olympics as well as at the Pythian, Isthmian and Nemean games.
Pindar honoured Ergotelis with the ‘12th Olympionikus’. Ergotelis’ beliefs and personality, his values and his origins at Knossos near Iraklion inspired the club’s founders in their choice of name in 1929.
The club was forced to shut down temporarily in 1935 because of the political activism of leading figures in the club. Ergotelis regrouped in 1937 with a strong team that was first in the 1940 Iraklion Football Clubs Association Championship but that was never completed due to World War II.
The Greek colonels junta in 1967-1974 issued an edict demanding every regional Greek city be represented in professional divisions by one single football team. At that time, both OFI and Ergotelis were playing in the Second National division, and at the end of the 1966-1967 season they finished in third and tenth place respectively. Both clubs had secured their place in the second division for the next season, but under the colonels’ diktat, Ergotelis was relegated to amateur status.
Ergotelis claimed the relegation in 1967 was retaliation for allowing the songwriter and composer Mikis Theodorakis, later a key voice against the regime, to perform a concert at the Martinengo Stadium on 6 August 1966. The colonels branded Ergotelis an unpatriotic organisation, and club officials were accused of ‘deviating from the purposes for which they were elected, turning the club into an instrument servicing political, and sometimes unpatriotic objectives’.
At the end of the 1966-1967 Beta Ethniki season, the club was forcibly relegated to amateur status through an edict that allowed each regional city have only one team in the Second national Division.
To add insult to injury, any local clubs remaining in the second division were given the right to demand the transfer of any number of players from the relegated clubs, bypassing official transfer regulations. OFI remained in the national competitions and signed up five of the best Ergotelis players at the time – Konstantinos Theodorakis, Dimitrios Papadopoulos, Manolis Stavroulakis, Konstantinos Zouraris and Georgios Skandalakis.
A court decision in favour of Ergotelis was overruled by the Hellenic Football Federation, which was controlled by the junta and approved OFI’s contracts with the players and threatened to evict Ergotelis officials from the Martinengo Stadium. Club directors were either demoted or prosecuted and Ergotelis was effectively dismantled in 1967.
It was the beginning of a prolonged period where Ergotelis languished in the lower leagues, while OFI prospered. Ergotelis made a brief comeback to the Second Division after winning the 1969-1970 local Iraklion Championship. But the club was now too weak to be competitive, and was relegated at the end of the 1970-1971 season.
After the junta collapsed in 1974, several attempts were made to bring Ergotelis back into competitive football. But these efforts were met with failure, and Ergotelis struggled between the lower regional and national competitions for over 30 years.
Happily, in recent years, old bitter rivalries between OFI and Ergotelis eased off in the early 2000s when Ergotelis returned to top-flight football. OFI fans have celebrated Ergotelis promotion and attended home games during the club’s first season in the Super League. Relations improved further when Ergotelis loaned the legendary scorer Patrick Ogunsoto to a financially struggling OFI in the Beta Ethniki for no fee, to help OFI’s bid to return to the Super League.
When Ergotelis was promoted in 2004, the Martinengo Stadium was not fit for use in Alpha Ethniki matches. Ergotelis relocated its home ground to the newly-built Pankritio Stadium (Παγκρήτιο Στάδιο, Pancretan Stadium), and OFI’s Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium was designated the club’s alternate home ground.
The 2014-1015 season was marred by continuous managerial changes, an abundance of unfortunate and costly player transfers, multiple matches postponements mid-season and competitors withdrawing from the league due to financial reasons. Ergotelis finally finished in 16th place in the regular Super League and was placed 15th only because Kerkyra (Corfu) was penalised, placed 16th and relegated for the illegal transfer of shares.
Financial crises, one after another, came to a climax on 19 January 2016, when club officials finally decided to withdraw the team from the competition. After 14 consecutive years playing in professional divisions, Ergotelis was once again relegated to amateur status and went into liquidation.
Despite finishing in ninth place during the 2021–22 Super League Greece 2, Ergotelis were discharged from the professional championship, resulting in a two-level demotion to the local top-level amateur championship, FCA Heraklion A1.
Ergotelis has a small but fiercely loyal fanbase, organised into two supporters’ groups, the Daltons Club and the Alternatives Fans of Ergotelis. They both usually occupy Gate 19 at the Pankritio Stadium.
The club has never forgotten its social and political traditions. A concert at the Pankritio Stadium on 19 September 2011 honoured Mikis Theodorakis, commemorating the 45th anniversary of the controversial concert at the Martinengo Stadium in 1966 that challenged the rise of political authoritarianism in Greece.
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