PFC Naftex Burgas

PFC Naftex Burgas () is a former football club from Burgas, Bulgaria.

History

The club was created in 1962 by a group of workers, laying the foundations of the future Petroleum Refinery Neftochim, which had not yet been named. The team startеd in A regional group under the name of Stroitel. The team's first-ever friendly game was against Lokomotiv Burgas. In 1964 the Refinery was finally named Neftochim and the team's name was also changed to Neftochimic.
In 1965 the team earned its promotion to 2nd Bulgarian division. In its first game in 2nd division, on September 9, 1965, the team played in front of a crowd of 8000 fans. The team players at the time were workers from the refinery, who had been training daily after hours. 1965 was the year when the construction of the new official stadium of the team commenced. The stadium was completed in 1967 and was named "Neftochimic Stadium" ("Стадион Нефтохимик"). The first-ever game played at the stadium was the game between the under-21 teams of Bulgaria and Finland. The primary reason for the stadium construction was to host the home games of Neftochimic.
In 1969, after an ill-advised decision by the ruling communist party in Bulgaria, to form a unified Burgas team that would gather the best football players in town, FC Neftochimic was disbanded and the best players of the team left to join the other local team – Chernomorets.
From 1969 to 1981 Neftochimic remained a lower-tier club, involved in workers' championships only. The stadium in complex Lazur, however, was still frequented by the same enthusiastic crowd of fans that had supported the team during its years in second division. During those days, the local rival team – FC Chernomorec – tried on numerous occasions to "steal" Neftochimic's stadium. At the time FC Chernomorec was a member of Bulgaria's elite division, but it played its home games at a place called "Kolodruma" which did not suit the team's ambitions. The directors of the "Neftochim" refinery, however, managed to retain ownership of the stadium by creating an inter-refinery workers' championship that was hosted at the stadium.
For a period of 12 years Neftochimic was wiped off the map of Bulgarian football.
On May 6, 1981, after the stadium of second division club Lokomotiv Burgas (created 1932) was destroyed to leave space for a railway expansion, Lokomotiv decided to merge into FC Neftochimic and start playing its home games at "Neftochimic" stadium. That brought Neftochimic back into professional football and the official name of the team became DSF Neftochimic. The new team was officially registered on January 29, 1986, and this is what has caused a lot of confusion later and is the main source of the misconception that the team has been in existence since 1986 only.
The newly formed team started its first season in second division, where Lokomotiv had been playing before the merger.

The Portochanov Era (1990–2004)

Neftochimic played in the lower divisions in the first four years of the existences of the team. In 1990, Hristo Portochanov took charge of the administration of the club. In his first year as a president, he began the reconstruction of the Neftochimic Stadium and by the year 1997 the stadium was transformed into the best football stadium in Bulgaria and among the best on the Balkan Peninsula. In 1993, Dimitar Dimitrov signed as a manager of the team and it won the Bulgarian Eastern B PFG and qualifies in the Bulgarian top division for the first time in its history. Neftochimic finished at 8th place in its first season and reached the semifinals of the Bulgarian Cup eliminating champions Levski Sofia on its way. The second season in the Bulgarian A PFG was among the most successful season in the history of the club. Neftochimic finished 4th and won the Professional League Cup. In 1997, PFC Neftochimic finished second after a series of referee's mistakes in favor of champions CSKA Sofia and won again the Professional League Cup. In the following years, Neftochimic established itself as one of the best teams in the country regularly finishing in places allowing the team to participate in the UEFA Cup. In the 2000–01 season Neftochimic eliminated AC Omonia Cyprus with 2:1 on aggregate, but later was defeated by Lokomotiv Moscow – 0:0 and 2:4.

On 16 December 2001, the club was renamed Naftex after the oil company that became the majority owner.

Difficult years (2004–2009)

In year 2004, Portochanov resigned as a president of Naftex and the club began experiencing serious troubles. Many of the very strong and experienced players that brought success to Naftex were sold and the new management managed the club carelessly allowing it to fall out of the Bulgarian A PFG in 2006. From 2006 PFC Naftex is a satellite of PFC Chernomorets. On July 6, 2009, the club is folded. On the next day – July 7 an amateur football club called "Athletic" was renamed to Neftochimic 1986 and was declared by its new owners as successor of the old team.

League history

ImageSize = width:1600 height:70
PlotArea = left:10 right:10 bottom:30 top:10
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy
DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy
Period = from:01/07/1963 till:01/07/2010
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:2 start:1964

Colors =
id:First_tier value:green legend:First_tier
id:Second_tier value:white legend:Second_tier
id:Third_tier value:red legend:Third_tier
id:Fourth_tier value:yellow legend:Fourth_tier
id:Fifth_tier value:blue legend:Fifth_tier
id:Does_not_exist value:black legend:Does_not_exist

PlotData=
bar:Position width:16 color:white align:center
from:01/07/1963 till:01/07/1964 shift:(0,-4) text:7
from:01/07/1964 till:01/07/1965 shift:(0,-4) text:1
from:01/07/1963 till:01/07/1965 color:red shift:(0,14) text: " V Group"
from:01/07/1965 till:01/07/1966 shift:(0,-4) text:17
from:01/07/1965 till:01/07/1966 color:white shift:(0,14) text: " B Group"
from:01/07/1966 till:01/07/1967 shift:(0,-4) text:5
from:01/07/1967 till:01/07/1968 shift:(0,-4) text:2
from:01/07/1968 till:01/07/1969 shift:(0,-4) text:8
from:01/07/1969 till:01/07/1970 shift:(0,-4) text:16
from:01/07/1966 till:01/07/1970 color:red shift:(0,14) text: " V Group"
from:01/07/1970 till:01/07/1980 color:black shift:(0,14) text: Does not exist
from:01/07/1980 till:01/07/1981 shift:(0,-4) text:13
from:01/07/1981 till:01/07/1982 shift:(0,-4) text:6
from:01/07/1982 till:01/07/1983 shift:(0,-4) text:6
from:01/07/1983 till:01/07/1984 shift:(0,-4) text:4
from:01/07/1984 till:01/07/1985 shift:(0,-4) text:12
from:01/07/1985 till:01/07/1986 shift:(0,-4) text:5
from:01/07/1986 till:01/07/1987 shift:(0,-4) text:5
from:01/07/1987 till:01/07/1988 shift:(0,-4) text:18
from:01/07/1980 till:01/07/1988 color:white shift:(0,14) text: " B Group"
from:01/07/1988 till:01/07/1989 shift:(0,-4) text:9
from:01/07/1989 till:01/07/1990 shift:(0,-4) text:5
from:01/07/1990 till:01/07/1991 shift:(0,-4) text:1
from:01/07/1988 till:01/07/1991 color:red shift:(0,14) text: " V Group"
from:01/07/1991 till:01/07/1992 shift:(0,-4) text:3
from:01/07/1992 till:01/07/1993 shift:(0,-4) text:8
from:01/07/1993 till:01/07/1994 shift:(0,-4) text:1
from:01/07/1991 till:01/07/1994 color:white shift:(0,14) text: " B Group"
from:01/07/1994 till:01/07/1995 shift:(0,-4) text:8
from:01/07/1995 till:01/07/1996 shift:(0,-4) text:4
from:01/07/1996 till:01/07/1997 shift:(0,-4) text:2
from:01/07/1997 till:01/07/1998 shift:(0,-4) text:4
from:01/07/1998 till:01/07/1999 shift:(0,-4) text:6
from:01/07/1999 till:01/07/2000 shift:(0,-4) text:4
from:01/07/2000 till:01/07/2001 shift:(0,-4) text:5
from:01/07/2001 till:01/07/2002 shift:(0,-4) text:6
from:01/07/2002 till:01/07/2003 shift:(0,-4) text:8
from:01/07/2003 till:01/07/2004 shift:(0,-4) text:8
from:01/07/2004 till:01/07/2005 shift:(0,-4) text:7
from:01/07/2005 till:01/07/2006 shift:(0,-4) text:15
from:01/07/1994 till:01/07/2006 color:green shift:(0,14) text: "A Group"
from:01/07/2006 till:01/07/2007 shift:(0,-4) text:2
from:01/07/2007 till:01/07/2008 shift:(0,-4) text:8
from:01/07/2008 till:01/07/2009 shift:(0,-4) text:2
from:01/07/2006 till:01/07/2009 color:white shift:(0,14) text: " B Group"
from:01/07/2009 till:01/07/2010 shift:(0,-4) text:3

Notable players

Had international caps for their respective countries, held any club record, or had more than 100 league appearances. Players whose name is listed in bold represented their countries.

;Bulgaria
* Veselin Branimirov
* Simeon Chilibonov
* Georgi Chilikov
* Ivan Čvorović
* Stanimir Dimitrov
* Stanimir Dimov-Valkov
* Gancho Evtimov
* Milen Georgiev
* Yordan Gospodinov
* Iliya Gruev
* Daniel Hristov

* Deyan Hristov
* Said Ibraimov
* Todor Kiselichkov
* Radostin Kishishev
* Miroslav Kosev
* Georgi Kostadinov
* Nikolay Krastev
* Blagomir Mitrev
* Valentin Naydenov
* Malin Orachev
* Veliyan Parushev
* Veselin Penev
* Diyan Petkov

* Stoyko Sakaliev
* Georgi Sarmov
* Veselin Shulev
* Anton Spasov
* Vladislav Stoyanov
* Georgi Terziev
* Mitko Trendafilov
* Yanko Valkanov
* Todor Yanchev
* Kosta Yanev
* Zlatko Yankov
* Stanislav Zhekov

;South America
* Mario Núñez

Stadium

Lazur Stadium in Burgas was the home stadium of Naftex. The stadium is currently renamed to efbet Arena Burgas.
It has 18,037 seats and a great training and fitness base. It is located in the Lazur complex near the sea garden in Burgas. The stadium has great facilities and has hosted several international games of the Bulgaria national football team. Litex Lovech and Lokomotiv Plovdiv have also played a number of their games for the continental competitions in Burgas.

Lazur Stadium's capacity of 18,037 seats was quite outnumbered in the past by eventually reaching up to 25,000 in derby games between domestic Naftex and leading teams from the country.

Prominent managers

* Ivan Vutov
* Dimitar Stoychev
* Georgi Vasilev
* Dimitar Dimitrov

References

{{Burgas Municipality

Association football clubs established in 1986
Association football clubs disestablished in 2009
Naftex
Naftex
1986 establishments in Bulgaria
2009 disestablishments in Bulgaria
Works association football clubs in Bulgaria