📅 ON THIS DAY IN BULGARIA, Saturday 6 June
What happened on this day
On 6 June 1979, at the Vasil Levski Stadium in Sofia, England beat Bulgaria 3-0 in a European Championship qualifier. Kevin Keegan opened the scoring before half time and England added two more after the break, a comfortable away win in front of a subdued home crowd.
The result kept England firmly on course to win their qualifying group and reach the 1980 European Championship finals in Italy, which they duly did. For Ron Greenwood, who had taken over from Don Revie in 1977, it was a satisfying night on the road: a clean sheet, three goals, and no fuss against a side England were expected to beat.
For Bulgaria it was the opposite. The team that had reached the latter stages of the World Cup in the 1960s, built around the great Georgi Asparuhov, was a fading force by the end of the 1970s. They would finish bottom of the qualifying group and miss out on Italy. The Sofia defeat was less a single bad night than a marker of a longer decline that kept Bulgaria away from major tournaments until the golden generation of the 1990s arrived.
Why this matters for British expats
The banks are shut because it is Saturday, and the roads into Shumen are clear. If you are planning a weekend trip to Sofia, the Vasil Levski Stadium is still there, a short walk from the centre, and still hosts the national team. It seats around 43,000, and on match days the atmosphere is exactly what you would expect from a country that takes its football seriously.
The value here is cultural. Football is one domain where Bulgarians and the British meet on familiar ground, and the fortunes of the national team are a reliable conversation starter. Bulgaria's real triumph over a major power came later, at the 1994 World Cup in the United States, where they beat the holders Germany on the way to the semi-finals. That is the result a Bulgarian football fan will bring up over a beer, and knowing about it earns you a flicker of respect.
If you are following England this summer, the 1979 visit to Sofia is a small reminder that the fixture has history on both sides. England have usually had the better of it, but Bulgaria have produced enough upsets over the decades, most famously that 1994 run, to make the rivalry worth knowing about.
Follow-on reading: Shumen.UK homepage.
Sources and further reading
The match is recorded as England 3-0 Bulgaria, a Euro 1980 Group 1 qualifier played at the Vasil Levski Stadium in Sofia on 6 June 1979, with Kevin Keegan among the scorers. England went on to win the group and qualify for the finals in Italy.