Levski Karlovo

Levski Karlovo play in Bulgaria's Third League, the third tier, a level the club has occupied for most of its history and shows no sign of leaving this season. There is no talk of promotion; the target, as usual, is to finish the campaign without incident.

The club was formed in 1923 in Karlovo, a town in Plovdiv Province, and has stayed there since. The kit — blue shirts and shorts, white socks at home, white shirt and blue shorts away — gave it the nickname it still carries, The Blues. Home matches are played at the Vasil Levski ground, which holds around 3,000, a capacity that has never needed to grow.

The one season the club points back to is 1974/75, when it finished third in Group B, then the second tier of Bulgarian football — still the highest league placing in its history. In the Bulgarian Cup, the furthest run came in 1993/94, ending in the second round.

Levski Karlovo has never won a national title, and half a century on, the 1974/75 campaign remains the closest it has come to one.