GRAHAM CAREY’S CAREER diversion to Bulgaria began at the University of Edinburgh.
Carey – who played to U21 level for Ireland and used a loan move to Bohemians from Celtic as the springboard to a solid career in Scotland – was playing at League One level for Plymouth Argyle when the son of the owner of CSKA Sofia moved to Scotland for his studies.
While there, he came across a highlights package of Carey in action for Plymouth, and was sufficiently impressed to send the clips on to his father Grisha Ganchev, an ex-wrestling promoter who is now the country’s key petrol distributor.
Ganchev, already eager to draw on UK-based players to bolster the CSKA squad, sanctioned the deal, made more straightforward by the fact Carey’s agent was already negotiating a move for ex-Celtic striker Tony Watt to the same club.
Carey landed in the blistering heat of summer, 2019, and stayed until 2022, returning to Scotland for family reasons.
“I’m happy he saw my clips, because playing abroad is something I always wanted to do,” Carey tells The 42.
The biggest cultural adjustment, he says, was the weather, with summer temperatures pushing past the mid-30s. Settling in was made easier by the fact an international squad used English as a common language.
“The Bulgarian lads were great,” he says, “similar to the Irish and Scottish lads: hard-working, liked to socialise, and were quite laid-back really.” Carey moved to Bulgaria at 30 and the change in tempo suited him, with training less intense and prioritising rest and recovery.
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Carey made more than a hundred appearances for CSKA, winning a Bulgarian Cup in 2021. He earned headlines in Ireland with a goal against Jose Mourinho’s Roma in the Conference League, but he won hearts and minds locally by scoring in a 2-1 derby win over Levski Sofia in 2021.
Riot police monitor Levski Sofia fans following a pitch invasion during the derby against CSKA in 2021. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
“In the city outside the game, you could tell there was a rivalry but it wasn’t hostile, it was a lovely place to live,” says Carey. “On game day, it quickly switched. It was two teams who don’t like each other and it showed on the pitch and in the stadium.”
The Sofia derby is one of the most intense in European football and is regularly marred by disorder. In 2000, a man was killed by a bomb after the game and in 2014, then CSKA coach Stoycho Mladenov said he was knocked unconscious by a snowball thrown from Levski fans. In 2018, a policewoman was seriously injured following an explosion near a stadium entrance, while last year’s derby was suspended for 20 minutes after CSKA fans invaded the pitch and attacked players and match officials.
The rivalry also offers a glimpse to Bulgaria’s post-war history. The Soviets occupied Bulgaria and realised they had to extend their control to football, such was the sport’s popularity. CSKA was founded in 1948 as the army’s team, while the Ministry of Interior took over Levski. (Efforts to rename the club to Dinamo Sofia, in line with other major clubs across the USSR, failed in the face of supporter opposition.)
CSKA won nine straight titles between 1954 and 1962 while breeding resentment elsewhere as the regime’s team, and relations with Levski hit rock bottom during the 1985 Bulgarian Cup final, which descended into violence.
The Bulgarian communist party reacted by disbanding both clubs, and re-founding them under new management. They also banned six players for life, including Hristo Stoichkov, but later reduced to a one-year ban following an appeal.
The fall of the Berlin Wall brought the slow decline of Sofia as the centre of Bulgarian football, and neither capital club has won the league title since 2009. The end of communism brought the rise of the wealthy entrepreneur, and the pharmaceutical billionaire Kiril Domuschiev has financed the extraordinary rise of Ludogorets, who play in the north-east city of Razgrad. Ludogorets won their first league title in 2012, and have won every single championship since then. They are currently 12 points clear of Levski as they close in on a 14th-straight league crown.
Before Ludogorets came Litex Lovech, whom League of Ireland fans will remember as Longford Town’s Uefa Cup opponents under Stephen Kenny more than 20 years ago. They won back-to-back league titles from 2009 to 2011, thanks to the financing of the aforementioned Ganchev. But in 2015, with CSKA in financial trouble, Ganchev left to take over the slumbering Sofia giant. The Bulgarian Cup won during Carey’s time is one of only two trophies won during Ganchev’s ownership thus far.
Nothing better symbolises football’s decline in Sofia than the fact the national team now play their home games in the 18,000-capacity Stadion Hristo Botev in Plovdiv. The capital has made clear its apathy to the national team, which has fallen upon hard times, having failed to qualify for a tournament since Euro 2004.
Carey was in the crowd for the nadir, a 6-0 Euro 2020 qualifier defeat to England in 2019. The game was twice stopped due to racist chanting from a section of the Bulgarian crowd, after which they were hit with a two-match stadium closure.
“It wasn’t nice to be there,” remembers Carey.
The whole episode was eventually too much pressure to bear for FA president Borislav Mihailov, who was the captain of the Bulgarian team that went to the semi finals of the 1994 World Cup. Mihailov’s ascent to the top job in Bulgarian football in 2005 coincided with the country’s decline as a competitive force. Fans complain of a lack of investment and strategy in youth development and their top-flight league becoming too reliant on international players.
Mihailov, meanwhile has become a controversial figure: in 2023 the Bulgarian public prosecutor launched an investigation into Mihailov, who denies wrongdoing.
Though he resigned in 2019, Mihailov returned to his post in 2021, but was forced out again two years later by mass protests by Bulgarian football fans. Dimitar Berbatov ran as the change candidate in the election of Mihailov’s successor, but was defeated Georgi Ivanov, a former Levski player.
The national team has improved since the appointment of Ilian Iliev in 2023, becoming more defensively robust and now vying with Ireland for promotion to League B of the Nations League. This being Bulgarian football, however, politics isn’t far away: Iliev is double-jobbing as manager of top-flight side Cherno More, with clubs in revolt at a perceived conflict of interest. Iliev offered to quit in advance of this week’s tie with Ireland, though the Bulgarian FA refused to accept.
Carey, meanwhile, will be watching on as an Ireland fan, and is disappointed not to have been recognised for a senior call-up during his time in Sofia. “Maybe it was because of my age,” suggests Carey. “It’s frustrating as it would have been the proudest moment of my career.”
Carey is back in Scotland now, playing with St Johnstone, and at 35, looks likely to remain a stranger with senior international honours. Games with Bulgaria at least affords him a chance to look on and see some familiar faces.
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'It's frustrating' - The player whose form in Bulgaria could have earned an Ireland call up
GRAHAM CAREY’S CAREER diversion to Bulgaria began at the University of Edinburgh.
Carey – who played to U21 level for Ireland and used a loan move to Bohemians from Celtic as the springboard to a solid career in Scotland – was playing at League One level for Plymouth Argyle when the son of the owner of CSKA Sofia moved to Scotland for his studies.
While there, he came across a highlights package of Carey in action for Plymouth, and was sufficiently impressed to send the clips on to his father Grisha Ganchev, an ex-wrestling promoter who is now the country’s key petrol distributor.
Ganchev, already eager to draw on UK-based players to bolster the CSKA squad, sanctioned the deal, made more straightforward by the fact Carey’s agent was already negotiating a move for ex-Celtic striker Tony Watt to the same club.
Carey landed in the blistering heat of summer, 2019, and stayed until 2022, returning to Scotland for family reasons.
“I’m happy he saw my clips, because playing abroad is something I always wanted to do,” Carey tells The 42.
The biggest cultural adjustment, he says, was the weather, with summer temperatures pushing past the mid-30s. Settling in was made easier by the fact an international squad used English as a common language.
“The Bulgarian lads were great,” he says, “similar to the Irish and Scottish lads: hard-working, liked to socialise, and were quite laid-back really.” Carey moved to Bulgaria at 30 and the change in tempo suited him, with training less intense and prioritising rest and recovery.
Carey made more than a hundred appearances for CSKA, winning a Bulgarian Cup in 2021. He earned headlines in Ireland with a goal against Jose Mourinho’s Roma in the Conference League, but he won hearts and minds locally by scoring in a 2-1 derby win over Levski Sofia in 2021.
“In the city outside the game, you could tell there was a rivalry but it wasn’t hostile, it was a lovely place to live,” says Carey. “On game day, it quickly switched. It was two teams who don’t like each other and it showed on the pitch and in the stadium.”
The Sofia derby is one of the most intense in European football and is regularly marred by disorder. In 2000, a man was killed by a bomb after the game and in 2014, then CSKA coach Stoycho Mladenov said he was knocked unconscious by a snowball thrown from Levski fans. In 2018, a policewoman was seriously injured following an explosion near a stadium entrance, while last year’s derby was suspended for 20 minutes after CSKA fans invaded the pitch and attacked players and match officials.
The rivalry also offers a glimpse to Bulgaria’s post-war history. The Soviets occupied Bulgaria and realised they had to extend their control to football, such was the sport’s popularity. CSKA was founded in 1948 as the army’s team, while the Ministry of Interior took over Levski. (Efforts to rename the club to Dinamo Sofia, in line with other major clubs across the USSR, failed in the face of supporter opposition.)
CSKA won nine straight titles between 1954 and 1962 while breeding resentment elsewhere as the regime’s team, and relations with Levski hit rock bottom during the 1985 Bulgarian Cup final, which descended into violence.
The Bulgarian communist party reacted by disbanding both clubs, and re-founding them under new management. They also banned six players for life, including Hristo Stoichkov, but later reduced to a one-year ban following an appeal.
The fall of the Berlin Wall brought the slow decline of Sofia as the centre of Bulgarian football, and neither capital club has won the league title since 2009. The end of communism brought the rise of the wealthy entrepreneur, and the pharmaceutical billionaire Kiril Domuschiev has financed the extraordinary rise of Ludogorets, who play in the north-east city of Razgrad. Ludogorets won their first league title in 2012, and have won every single championship since then. They are currently 12 points clear of Levski as they close in on a 14th-straight league crown.
Before Ludogorets came Litex Lovech, whom League of Ireland fans will remember as Longford Town’s Uefa Cup opponents under Stephen Kenny more than 20 years ago. They won back-to-back league titles from 2009 to 2011, thanks to the financing of the aforementioned Ganchev. But in 2015, with CSKA in financial trouble, Ganchev left to take over the slumbering Sofia giant. The Bulgarian Cup won during Carey’s time is one of only two trophies won during Ganchev’s ownership thus far.
Nothing better symbolises football’s decline in Sofia than the fact the national team now play their home games in the 18,000-capacity Stadion Hristo Botev in Plovdiv. The capital has made clear its apathy to the national team, which has fallen upon hard times, having failed to qualify for a tournament since Euro 2004.
Carey was in the crowd for the nadir, a 6-0 Euro 2020 qualifier defeat to England in 2019. The game was twice stopped due to racist chanting from a section of the Bulgarian crowd, after which they were hit with a two-match stadium closure.
“It wasn’t nice to be there,” remembers Carey.
The whole episode was eventually too much pressure to bear for FA president Borislav Mihailov, who was the captain of the Bulgarian team that went to the semi finals of the 1994 World Cup. Mihailov’s ascent to the top job in Bulgarian football in 2005 coincided with the country’s decline as a competitive force. Fans complain of a lack of investment and strategy in youth development and their top-flight league becoming too reliant on international players.
Mihailov, meanwhile has become a controversial figure: in 2023 the Bulgarian public prosecutor launched an investigation into Mihailov, who denies wrongdoing.
Though he resigned in 2019, Mihailov returned to his post in 2021, but was forced out again two years later by mass protests by Bulgarian football fans. Dimitar Berbatov ran as the change candidate in the election of Mihailov’s successor, but was defeated Georgi Ivanov, a former Levski player.
The national team has improved since the appointment of Ilian Iliev in 2023, becoming more defensively robust and now vying with Ireland for promotion to League B of the Nations League. This being Bulgarian football, however, politics isn’t far away: Iliev is double-jobbing as manager of top-flight side Cherno More, with clubs in revolt at a perceived conflict of interest. Iliev offered to quit in advance of this week’s tie with Ireland, though the Bulgarian FA refused to accept.
Carey, meanwhile, will be watching on as an Ireland fan, and is disappointed not to have been recognised for a senior call-up during his time in Sofia. “Maybe it was because of my age,” suggests Carey. “It’s frustrating as it would have been the proudest moment of my career.”
Carey is back in Scotland now, playing with St Johnstone, and at 35, looks likely to remain a stranger with senior international honours. Games with Bulgaria at least affords him a chance to look on and see some familiar faces.
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Bulgaria Bulgarian Days CSKA SOFIA Graham Carey Republic Of Ireland uefa nations league