Pelister

Bitola had already lost a football club once before anyone was born. What became Pelister started life in 1924 as Omladina, changed its name, changed it again to SK Bitola, and won a championship under that banner in 1926. Then came the war, and the club had to be rebuilt — refounded in 1945 under the name it carries today, absorbing another local side, Rabotnik, the following year without giving up the identity it had just reclaimed. The badge still marks 1945 as the starting point, even though the story runs two decades further back.

The green and white shirts gave the club its nickname, the Green-Whites. There was substance behind the colours in the old Yugoslav league, where Pelister won the Macedonian republican championship eight times and the republican cup four times.

Home is the stadium once known simply as the ground under Tumbe Kafe, in all-seated stands.

What the club has mostly exported is players rather than trophies. Georgi Hristov left the Pelister academy for Partizan and then Barnsley, and went on to score 16 goals in 48 appearances for the national team. Nikolče Noveski built a career of more than 300 matches in Germany, at Hansa Rostock and Mainz 05. One academy graduate, Mitko Stojkovski, came back not to play but to help run the club through a period when it was close to going under.