Ergotelis Football Club () is a Greek professional football club based in Heraklion, Crete, which competes in the Gamma Ethniki, the third tier of the Greek football league system, and hosts its home games at the Pankritio Stadium. Established in 1929 and named after the ancient Cretan Olympic runner, it is part of Gymnastics Club Ergotelis ().
Ergotelis is one of the two Heraklion-based football clubs to have competed in the Greek Super League, the country's top-level football competition, having made a total of 9 appearances during 2004–2015. The club's best finish in the competition is 7th place during the 2013–14 season. It has also won the Beta Ethniki (second tier of the Greek football league system) once, in 2006, as well as the Greek Amateur Cup in 1983. Its traditional colors are yellow and black.
History
Early years Ergotelis was established as an amateur club of Cretan footballers in 1929 by prominent Heraklion citizens, mainly refugees from Asia Minor. The club's foundation, as well as its first ever recorded game, a friendly 4–0 win against local side Leon () held at Chandax () stadium on 4 August 1929, was reported onto local newspaper 'Eleythera Skepsis' () on Wednesday, 7 August 1929. Since its early days, Ergotelis showed the progressive ideals of its founders, being one of the first sports clubs in Greece to allow women into its sporting divisions, as well as its board of directors. The club temporarily shut down in 1935, following the involvement of its leading executives in political movements of the time. Ergotelis was re-established in 1937, developing a remarkable athletics department along with a strong football team, that went on to place 1st in the 1940 Heraklion Football Clubs Association Championship, which was never finished due to World War II.
After the war, the club emerged as the most powerful competitor to regular Heraklion Football Clubs Association champions OFI, shaping up a new football and social rivalry in local sport. Ergotelis eventually gained its own football ground in 1946, the Ergotelis Stadium (also known as Martinengo Stadium, after the Martinengo Bastion), located on the Venetian Era walls surrounding the city's center, and would mostly play in Heraklion's local championship and Greece's national Second Division, after the latter was founded in the early 1960s. Ergotelis actually came close to achieve a historic promotion to the First Division during the very first Beta Ethniki season held in 1960, finishing 3rd in the Southern Group, just 4 points behind Group Champions Atromitos Piraeus. The club was demoted to the newly established Gamma Ethniki in 1964−65 after finishing 9th in Group 2, and subsequently won the Group 1 Gamma Ethniki championship in 1966, the club's first ever national honour, to top off instant re-promotion to the Beta Ethniki.
Junta years, Theodorakis concert and repercussions (1966–1974)
During the Greek military junta of 1967–1974, Ergotelis was 'branded' as an unpatriotic organization, and its officials were accused for «deviating from the purposes for which they were elected, turning the club into an instrument servicing political, and sometimes unpatriotic objectives», after the club's board of directors allowed renowned songwriter and composer Mikis Theodorakis, a key voice against the right-wing government, to perform a concert on Martinengo stadium. After the conclusion of the 1966–1967 Beta Ethniki season, the club was forcibly relegated to amateur status through a legislation, that allowed each regional city of Greece to be represented in the country's Second national Division by a single team only. Furthermore, to add insult to injury, any local clubs remaining in the Beta Ethniki had the right to demand the transfer of any number of players from the relegated clubs, bypassing official transfer regulations. As a result, five of Ergotelis' best considered players at the time (Konstantinos Theodorakis, Dimitrios Papadopoulos, Manolis Stavroulakis, Konstantinos Zouraris and Georgios Skandalakis), were signed by local rival OFI – who remained in the national competitions. Shortly after, a court decision in favor of Ergotelis was overruled by the junta-controlled Hellenic Football Federation, which finally approved OFI's contracts with the players and threatened Ergotelis officials with eviction from their home turf in Martinengo Stadium. After members of the club's board of directors were either demoted or prosecuted, Ergotelis was practically dismantled in 1967. The club made a brief comeback to the Second Division after winning the 1969−70 local Heraklion Championship, but the weakened roster and administration were too inexperienced to be competitive, and the club was therefore instantly relegated at the end of the 1970−71 season, after finishing in last place.
Post-Junta period and the 80s sporadic breakthroughs (1974–1999) After the junta's collapse in 1974, several attempts were made to bring the team back to Greek football reality, however most of these were met with failure. As a result, Ergotelis struggled between the lower regional and national competitions for over 30 years.The rough guide to Crete By John Fisher, Geoff Garvey Page 93 Ergotelis managed not to go completely unnoticed during these years however, achieving some notable breakthroughs in the 80s, along the way to a rebirth.
During the 1982–83 season, the club won the Greek Football Amateur Cup, by defeating AO Arta 2–0 in the competition final held at the Leoforos Alexandras Stadium, thus becoming the first Cretan club to win the competition. The 1984–85 season saw the club finishing at the top of the Delta Ethniki Group 1 table to promote to the Gamma Ethniki as champions. However the most notable feat of this period came during the 1985–86 season, when Ergotelis, at the time playing in the Gamma Ethniki, managed to reach the Greek Cup quarterfinals, which would remain the best performance of the club in the competition for 33 years. Being the sole representative of the Gamma Ethniki still remaining in the competition, Ergotelis consecutively eliminated Niki Volos, Alpha Ethniki side Panserraikos and Olympiacos Volos to reach the quarterfinals, where the club squared off against eventual title winners Panathinaikos. Though giving the "Greens" a tough match to eventually go down 2–3 in the first leg held at the Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium in Heraklion, Ergotelis were completely dominated in the second leg, where they lost to the eventual Greek champions with an emphatic 7–1 score at the Leoforos Alexandras Stadium on 9 April 1986. This feat marked the end of Ergotelis' attempts at a return during this period, as the club was relegated back to the Delta Ethniki two years later, at the end of the 1987–88 season.
Ergotelis briefly resurfaced in the mid-90s, spending two consecutive seasons in the Gamma Ethniki during 1996–98, after winning the Delta Ethniki 1995–96 Group 2 championship. It would then take another 5 years for the club to re-emerge, and this time complete a full comeback.
Rebirth and rise to top-flight (1999–2006)
In the late 90s Ergotelis' came under the ownership of veteran football directors Georgios Soultatos and Nikos Tzortzoglou, who took over the club for the third time after two relatively successful tenures during the 90s. Learning from past experience, careful transfers of promising players from the Cretan market were made, while an emphasis was placed on the development and growth of the club's infrastructure, leading up to the establishment of the Ergotelis Youth Academy at Martinengo Stadium. Within a couple of years, Ergotelis grew into a strong, competitive team composed mostly of Cretan players, that would celebrate three consecutive promotions from the 4th Division to reach the Alpha Ethniki, the highest professional football league in Greece for the first time in club history.
In 2001, the Soultatos−Tzortzoglou duo appointed Cretan manager and former OFI legendary goalkeeper Myron Sifakis as club manager, a position he would retain for the next three-and-a-half years. After managing promotion to the Gamma Ethniki in 2002, the club signed Nigerian striker Patrick Ogunsoto, who eventually developed into the club's all-time top-scorer. The professional football department of Ergotelis was established the same year, as a requirement for the club being eligible to play in the Gamma Ethniki. Despite being newcomers, Ergotelis finished second in the 2002−03 Gamma Ethniki season, boasting a remarkable 80 points on the League Table and winning every single home game played at Martinengo Stadium that season. Ogunsoto personally scored 30 goals in 32 games, with emblematic team captain Stavros Labrakis adding in another 12, both significantly contributing to the club's triumphant return to the Beta Ethniki after a 31-year absence.
In the following season, Ergotelis participated in the Beta Ethniki, once again leveraging on a string of strong home game performances (eleven wins, three draws and only one loss), backed by a fierce support of the club's fans. The club came in third with 55 points in the Beta Ethniki, earning a chance at promotion in a single promotion play-off match against the club that would finish 14th in the 2003–04 Alpha Ethniki season. On May 30, 2004, Ergotelis won that match, defeating Athenian club Akratitos 1−0 at the neutral Makedonikos Stadium in Thessaloniki in front of a cheering crowd of 2,000 fans travelling from various corners of the country, thanks to an injury time goal by Jean Marie Sylla. The club thus became the second team to have represented Heraklion in the highest professional football league in Greece, alongside club rival OFI. Hundreds of Ergotelis supporters took to the streets that night in celebrations, escorting the victors' bus from the Heraklion International Airport to Martinengo Stadium. Ergotelis' promotion coincided with the completion of the Pankritio Stadium for the 2004 Summer Olympics, and due to the stricter regulations for football venues in the Alpha Ethniki, the team left Martinengo Stadium and moved to the Pankritio, which still remains the club's home ground to this day.
On the sidelines, the club took full advantage of the new stadium during its debut season in the Alpha Ethniki, attracting fans from all over Crete and earning recognition by both the Greek state and Hellenic Football Federation. As a result, the club broke several attendance records, including setting the Pankritio Stadium's sold-out record on 20 February 2005, during a Super League 2−1 home win against reigning champions Olympiacos. On the pitch however, the club's lack of experience led to an underwhelming league performance. Despite achieving notable wins against Greek giants Olympiacos and PAOK, Ergotelis failed to avoid relegation and eventually finished in 15th place having just 5 wins, 5 draws and 20 losses. Patrick Ogunsoto produced 11 out of a total 19 goals scored by Ergotelis during the season, in which the club also terminated its contract with Myron Sifakis after controversial remarks following a 0−1 home loss vs. his former playing club OFI. The following year however, after overcoming a rough start to the 2005–06 season, Ergotelis returned to good form after Greek manager Nikos Karageorgiou took over in mid-season, achieving instant promotion back to top-flight and winning its first-ever Beta Ethniki title. The club spent the season undefeated at home (11 wins, 4 draws), while also managing to impress crowds once again with their performance in the Greek Football Cup, where they managed to eliminate Greek giants Panathinaikos. Once again, Ogunsoto led the club in scoring with 21 goals, earning himself a transfer abroad to Belgian First Division side Westerlo.
Super League tenure and Papoutsakis' era (2006–2012)