Mertskhali

Ozurgeti's fiercest rivalry lies west along the Gurian coast, in Lanchkhuti, home to Guria. The derby between the two sides goes back to the 1930s, and lately it has run one way: Guria have won 17 of the 36 meetings recorded by 2025, and Mertskhali have not beaten them in the last 13.

The club's own name, Mertskhali, means swallow in Georgian, hence the nickname Swallows. Founded in 1936, it spent much of the Soviet era playing under other names — Dinamo, Kolmeurne, Sikharuli, later Anako — before settling back on Mertskhali in 1995. Home matches are played at Stadioni Megobroba, Ozurgeti's central ground, which holds 3,500.

Its best football came between 1982 and 1987, under coach Bakhva Giorgadze. Mertskhali won the Georgian SSR championship three times in that stretch — 1967, 1982 and 1987 — and took the Georgian SSR Cup on three further occasions besides, adding a zonal Soviet Second League title in 1985.

Nothing on that scale has followed. The club finished bottom of the top flight in 1991/92, dropped out of the First League in 2006/07, and fell again between 2015 and 2017; by early 2019 it was up for sale over its finances. It climbed back through the regional league in 2023 and finished the 2025 season eleventh in Liga 4. Omari Tetradze, Irakli Zoidze and Grigol Dolidze all went on from Ozurgeti to play for Georgia's national team.

In June 2026, Mertskhali's run in the David Kipiani Cup ended in the round of 32, beaten 3-1 by Gori.