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RK Vardar 1961 logo

Rugby team

RK Vardar 1961

Club · North Macedonia · Superleague

«Crveno-Crni»

146 Matches
123 wins
3 draws
20 losses
4585–3672 Goals
+913 Difference
31.4 Scored per game
Form W 12 Aug · Home Prilep · 39:29 W 14 Aug · Away Butel Skopje · 26:21 W 18 Aug · Home Olympiacos SFP · 39:27 W 20 Aug · Home Nexe · 33:27 W 4 Sep · Home Eurofarm Pelister 2 · 31:19 L 10 Sep · Away MT Melsungen · 31:33

The Sportski Centar Jane Sandanski holds 7,500 inside a bowl built for European nights, and it is there that Vardar staged the run which made it the first club from the former Yugoslavia to lift the EHF Champions League. The final in Cologne, in May 2017, ended 24–23 against Paris Saint-Germain Handball; two years later, in Hamburg, Telekom Veszprém went down 27–24. Both wins fell inside the stretch between 2013 and 2020 when the Russian businessman Sergey Samsonenko financed the club and brought in players such as Ivan Čupić and Timur Dibirov, whose names are still tied to that era in Skopje.

The club traces itself to 1961, formed out of RK Grafichar Skopje and players from RK Partizan, and sits under the wider Vardar Sports Club founded in 1947. It shares its "Crveno-Crni" nickname, and its red and black colours, with the football side of the same organisation.

Samsonenko's departure in May 2020 left the club in financial and political disarray. Mihajlo Mihajlovski, a former president, came back to take charge, and the entity was restructured and renamed RK Vardar 1961 to draw a line under the old company's debts. What survived the change was the academy: Filip Taleski, who came through it, now captains the side that rebuilt around him rather than around imported names.

Domestically almost nothing has slipped past Vardar. The derby against Eurofarm Pelister has replaced the old city rivalry with RK Metalurg Skopje as the fixture that matters most now, and in the league itself the count of championships stands at 16.

Latest results

All matches
10 Sep Champions League MT Melsungen A 31:33 L
9 Sep Champions League Wisła Płock A
9 Sep Champions League MT Melsungen H
9 Sep Champions League Wisła Płock H
9 Sep Champions League Nantes A
4 Sep Superleague Eurofarm Pelister 2 H 31:19 W

Standing

Champions League

Group stage · Group B

# Team M W D L Goals Pts
1 MT Melsungen 1 1 0 0 0:31 2
2 Nantes 1 1 0 0 0:25 2
3 Wisła Płock 1 0 1 0 0:26 0
4 RK Vardar 1961 1 0 1 0 0:33 0
Full table

Team statistics

matches counted: 146
146 Matches
123 wins
3 draws
20 losses
4585–3672 Goals
+913 Difference
31.4 Scored per game
Season results matches counted: 146
123wins: 123 · 84% 3draws: 3 · 2% 20losses: 20 · 13%
wins draws losses
Scored and conceded last matches
12 Aug · Home Prilep · 39:29
14 Aug · Away Butel Skopje · 26:21
18 Aug · Home Olympiacos SFP · 39:27
20 Aug · Home Nexe · 33:27
4 Sep · Home Eurofarm Pelister 2 · 31:19
10 Sep · Away MT Melsungen · 31:33
scored — above the line conceded — below the line
Metric Total Home Away
Matches 146 76 70
Scored 4585 2482 2103
Conceded 3672 1871 1801
Scored per game 31.4 32.7 30.0
Conceded per game 25.2 24.6 25.7
Difference +913 +611 +302

Fixtures of RK Vardar 1961

Honours of RK Vardar 1961

  • Macedonian Handball Cup 1997, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025, 2026 18
  • Macedonian Handball Super League 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2026 16
  • Macedonian Handball Super Cup 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2026 5
  • Macedonian Republic League 1959, 1960, 1975 3
  • EHF Champions League 2017, 2019 2
  • SEHA League