In the distant 1990, Julian Dontchev, a Bulgarian living abroad and fan of Levski (Sofia) starts sending through the e-mail the Bulgarian football championship results. At this time, this mailing list is the only Internet (and not only) source of football information for the many Bulgarians, living abroad; while the only media which at that time has its own site in the net is the "Pari" newspaper (and naturally, football isn't even mentioned there).

Back then Julian has been receiving the information only through e-mails, sent by his brother or even from newspaper articles, sent to him via the ordinary mail. Due to this it was an often occurrence for the results to be published in the Internet with up to 2 or even 3 week delay, and yet despite that fact they were still the most "fresh" source of information for the Bulgarians abroad.

In 1992, apart from sending the results through the e-mail and via the newsgroups (soc.culture.bulgaria etc.), Julian starts to publish them in English in his site. The 2nd level of the Championship is now also covered. On the 1st of September 1992, the site "Bulgarian Football Latest" is born. The site is still in its "infant" stages, the results are not archived and the new ones are recorded directly onto the old ones. In 1995, "Bulgarian Football Latest" expands even further, now the Cup of Bulgaria is also covered, and a photo news section is added - something which is quite rare for the Interned at this time. The 3rd level is covered also since 1996.

"Bulgarian Football Latest" continues to grow over the years, the information there becomes more detailed and more up-to-date. A curious fact is that the main page of the site remains totally unchanged, apart from a minor link reconfiguration in 2000, from its founding to the beginning of 2002, with the site nearing its 10-year anniversary.

During the winter of 1999, Iordan Tsirov, who was then studying in the Second English Language School in Sofia, starts helping Julian with information, sent over the e-mail, at first from the lowest league levels and later for even more football events. So, in the beginning of 2000 Julian Dontchev offers him to "share" the site and to update the information on it together. By this, the quantity and "freshness" of the information improve even more. Another curious fact is that while Julian is a firm supporter of the "blues" from Levski, Tsirov is passionate fan of CSKA, and yet the two of them have always cooperated great together and in the fan criticisms, accusing them of not being neutral the two of them have always both been accused for siding either the "blues" or the "reds" fans. But what's better is the fact that as a whole this sort of criticism has always been very rare.

However there also come hard times for "Bulgarian Football Latest". For a short period of time the site has to be moved to a new domain, with the link between it and its visitors severed in the process, due to the fact that no redirection links can be left to lead them to its new "home". And this new "home" is the very unstable and unreliable free server "Xoom". For most of the football fans "Bulgarian Football Latest" practically seizes to exist.

Thanks to Julian Dontchev the site finds its way out from this mini-crisis and on the 31st of August 2000, "Bulgarian Football Latest" is already at its present domain. The counter shows 12 visitors (including the two webmasters of course ;_)), for this first night. But after a little longer than a month the average daily visitors count already surpasses the barrier of 100 people and only after a few months the "old glory" of the site is achieved once again and the visitors flow reaches its usual numbers from before the moment when "Bulgarian Football Latest" got "lost" among the highways of the Internet. So the attendance reaches 250-300 visitors in the peak days with the record attendance numbers surpassing the number of 400.

During the long years of its existence, "Bulgarian Football Latest" mostly thanks to Julian Dontchev earns itself the name of the site with the most complete and accurate information on the Bulgarian football, as well as of a valuable source of information for both the Bulgarians abroad and for the numerous foreign fans, statisticians, organizations and media, by this successfully propagating the Bulgarian football not only in our country but also on the international football scene.

The site was not once mentioned and used by various mostly foreign and not only Internet but also "regular" media. Starting from weird places like the programs for the Intertoto Cup match between UCD (Dublin, Ireland) and Velbazhd (Kyustendil) and finishing with some of the worlds most famous football magazines.

The "Bulgarian Football Latest" site is mentioned in the Bulgarian press too, with probably the most noticeable presence being on the pages of the "Meridian Match" newspaper in its edition from 9.1.1998, when in an article, dedicated to the opening of the Internet site of the newspaper (as you can see - "only" 6 years after "bul-foot" is born ;_)), the site and its founder are acknowledged as the most prominent in the Internet media.

Iordan TSIROV