THE FOOTY season in Australia may be a distant blur but the black and white of Port Adelaide’s prison-bar guernsey is still gracing the fields in one of the game’s newest emerging markets in Europe.

And while the home base of Bulgaria’s Sofia Magpies is about 14,500 kilometres away from the Alberton stronghold of the Port Adelaide Magpies, and they started with no home ground, no guernseys and not even a single football, the passion behind the club is no less significant.

Sofia’s Magpies were the brainchild of Atanas Kirachin, 26, a former journalist and SEO specialist who lives in the region with his fiancé Marina and baby daughter Alisa.

He had stumbled across AFL while flicking through some television channels in the early hours of the morning and then while reading the comments on a Facebook post by Port Adelaide he found a man named Brian Franklin who was originally from Adelaide and was living in Bulgaria with his Bulgarian wife.

The pair met and since 2014 discussed the idea of starting a football club, but it wasn’t until July 2018 when the team really came together.

The founder of the Sofia Magpies, Atanas Kirachin in action against Zagreb.

“We started July 28th 2018 with a Come and Try session in South Park here in Sofia,” Atanas told portadelaidefc.com.au.

“A month or two before that date we did a Facebook event and started work promoting it. We didn't have many footies so AFL Europe sent us one.

“We had the idea to start a club since 2014 when we did a kick in the park but for almost 5 years it was nothing going, we didn't see much of an interest around so decided not to rush it.

“But, when 10 people came to that first training, we knew we are onto something.”

With people interested in playing, Atanas and Brian set about coming up with a name and colours for the club.

Given both men’s allegiances to Port Adelaide, it was always going to be either the Magpies or Power.

“I contacted Ryan Davey, the AFL Europe Chairman and I asked him if he could work something out with the Power.

“Some weeks later he came back and told me he did his best but couldn't find any spare Power jumpers. Instead he offered some Gold Coast Suns clash guernseys he had in his basement waiting for a new club to pick them up, even suggesting we change our name to the Suns.

“But I decided not to give up and wanted one last roll on the dice, asking him if he can find Magpies jumpers.

“A week later he texted back and said it was our lucky day. A month or so later, in April, the guernseys came with the players from the Zagreb Hawks, who were visiting for our first ever game.”

Among the other challenges are the lack of playing fields suitable for Australian Rules football, and a lack of support from family and friends.

“My fiancé hates me watching games on TV because they take too long if you ask her but she supports the club and my work,” Atanas explained.

“On the other hand, I’ve got mates that would never watch a game with me but when they tried playing the game, they also became nuts about it.

“Aussie rules isn’t popular at all here, neither are any full contact ball sports.

“When we say we play Australian football people normally say "That's rugby, right?", when someone hears anything about American football they say "That's not football".

“Soccer is the most popular sporting code here and to be honest people don't take too seriously any other codes unless it's the Olympics or tennis with our best player Grigor Dimitrov.”

Training grounds have proven to be an issue, but it hasn't stopped the Magpies from fine tuning their game.

The Sofia Magpies faced a $5,000 AUD fee to hire a local ground for three hours to play a game because they are reserved by the local government for professional teams but with about 15 regular players attending, they needed a stable home.

“There are no ovals here as cricket is not popular too and even though we're playing 9-a-side and a soccer/rugby field would fit perfectly, there aren't any state-owned ones in a usable state, except for one in northern Sofia where we played our first game.

“We were lucky enough though to strike an agreement with the oldest rugby club in the country Locomotive Sofia to use their ground for trainings, "paying" them by helping them cut the grass, clean the ground and the stands and so on.

“The pitch isn’t ideal and it has rugby goals. During the rugby competition’s off-season, we go back to our "historical" ground in the South Park. It's just a lawn really but does the job as long as the authorities remember to keep the grass short.”

Given they’re the only team in Bulgaria, the Sofia Magpies have had to challenge teams in other countries to games, making them few and far between.

The first game was an educational trouncing at the hands of the Zagreb Hawks from Croatia.

But, the 32-254 score line meant little to Atanas and his team given they were just happy to get a game.

“To be honest we felt we got a good result by kicking 5 goals!” Atanas said.

“They could have easily scored 400 points against us as we had just one experienced player and they are a team for 10 years now.

“Towards the end of August, we played Odense Lions reserves from Denmark and we were more competitive this time around, even managing to kick the first goal of the match despite losing 30-88.”

The Sofia Magpies pose for a photo with the Odense Lions of Denmark after a competitive showing in their second game.

A self-described “utility” who finds himself playing anywhere from the back pocket or forward pocket to the middle, Atanas is also a five-year member Port Adelaide and has signed up his daughter for a membership as well.

He’s yet to visit Australia but is constantly in touch with all the news, even sharing posts about the Port Adelaide Magpies’ season through his side’s Facebook account.

With modest ambitions to train hard and secure more games, the Sofia Magpies are on a slow build.

“Since we don't have another team in the country, we're constantly looking for teams keen to travel to Sofia to come and play against us,” Atanas said.

“We're always trying to bring new guys and girls in and slowly our group grows bigger and we're reaching a point where the 15 guernseys we've got from Port Adelaide will be not enough - we're not sure yet how we'll tackle that issue.

“Hopefully we might also get a second team here in Sofia or the footy enthusiasts around the country, most notably Varna, will start one too.

“We're not a formal organisation yet so registering the club legally will be among our off-field goals this off-season.”

The biggest goal? Winning. In Atanas’ words, “as with Port Adelaide, the Magpies wouldn’t have it any other way.”