“Following a written proposal from the unofficial club ‘Leon’ to the Athletic Association ‘Ergotelis,’ an agreement was reached last Saturday to hold a friendly match the following Sunday at Chandax Stadium…”
This is how the competitive journey of the historic Ergotelis football club began in 1929.
Founded in honor of the ancient athlete Ergotelis, who hailed from Knossos and lived in exile in Sicily, the club became closely associated with the working class and ordinary families of Heraklion. Over the decades, it earned a reputation not only for its sporting achievements but also for its social and political engagement. Ergotelis stood up to Greece’s military dictatorship, counted among its members the heroic Napoleon Soukatzidis—one of the 200 communists executed at Kaisariani during the Nazi occupation—and built a legacy whose supporters can even be found as far away as Brazil.
Ladies and gentlemen, we invite you to discover the remarkable history of Ergotelis, from its founding in 1929 to the present day, along with an extraordinary story of resistance featuring one of Greece’s greatest cultural figures, Mikis Theodorakis.