Gagra

Goderdzi Chikhradze had already played and coached in Georgian football when, on 1 January 2004, he and his cousin Besik set up a club. The plan was to move Gagra to Gagra; the Abkhaz conflict made that impossible, so the side has spent its whole existence in Tbilisi, playing home matches at the David Petriashvili Arena.

The first four years were a study in falling at the last hurdle: three promotion play-offs between 2005 and 2008, three defeats. Promotion, when it came in 2008–09, arrived through other clubs' withdrawals rather than results, and lasted a single season — tenth place, straight back down.

What changed things was 2010–11. Gagra won Pirveli Liga and then went further than any second-tier club in the country had gone, beating three-time champions Torpedo Kutaisi in the Georgian Cup final. The goal came in the 117th minute, from Todua, and it was the only one of the match. The reward was a European tie the following summer against Anortosis of Cyprus, lost 3–2 on aggregate after a 2–0 win at home could not undo a 3–0 defeat away.

They did it again in 2020, once more from the second division, and that time nobody scored against them at all — 630 minutes of cup football without conceding. Sutjeska of Montenegro ended the European run that followed, 2–1 over two legs.

Top-flight football returned in 2021, ten years after the first cup, through a 1–0 play-off win over Shukura. Since 2022 the club has stayed up without needing that route again. Its best finish at that level remains seventh, in 2023, in a league of ten.