Marek

Four clubs in Dupnitsa — Atletik, Levski, Slavia and ZhSK — were folded into one in 1947, and the name stuck, and when the club was rebuilt from scratch in 2015 it took the form FC Marek 1915 , reaching past the merger to the earlier football played in the town.

The two seasons that fixed Marek in the Bulgarian memory came together. In 1976/77 the club finished third in the A Group, edging out Slavia for the bronze, and the year after that it beat CSKA Sofia 1:0 in the Bulgarian Cup final.

Everything since has been a matter of licences. In 2010 the debts cost Marek its professional status and its place in the second tier; an amateur side, Marek 2010, was assembled on what was left. Relegation from the top flight in 2015 brought the second collapse, and the reconstituted club began again in the fourth division. Winning the south-west group of the third tier in 2022/23 returned it to the Second League. Perník is close enough that the fixture with Minyor is treated in Dupnitsa as the derby.

Kiril Milanov came through at Marek and played there from 1966 to 1972. He left, and in 1976/77 finished as top scorer in the Cup Winners' Cup with 13 goals — six of them in a single match.