Haravgi Larissa F.C.

The club was founded in 1982 as Haravgi A.E. (Greek: Α.E. Χαραυγη), in the Haravgi (former Kali Kardia) district of Larissa town (Greek: Λάρισα) located in the Thessaly region of Greece. The club started from the lower divisions of the Larissa FCA, and in 1994 with chairman Stavros Pappas at the helm it eventually gained promotion to the top amateur division which was equivalent to the 5th overall division in the Greek football league system. Haravgi stayed there for 2 seasons only to be relegated in 1996. For the next four seasons the team made several attempts to win promotion but they ended in failure. Financial troubles led to the dissolution of the club in 2000. The most famous manager of the club was former goalkeeper Theologis Papadopoulos who had even been a member of the Greek national team, while the last chairman of the club was Kostas Voutiritsas, a former Haravgi player and brother of Theodoros Voutiritsas, another former Greek national team footballer.
The club used the Anthoupoli Ground, which is part of the Anthoupoli Athletic Center complex, located in the Anthoupoli district in Larissa for its home games and it developed an intense rivalry with Anthoupoli Larissa, another local team who Haravgi shared the ground with.

Haravgi came into the spotlight in the mid 90s when two of its squads members were transferred to Alpha Ethniki teams, the highest division in the Greek football league system: Dimitris Pappas and Konstantinos Mangos. These two footballers are the most important players who came out of the youth ranks of the club.[1] Striker Dimitris Pappas who is currently the coach and board member of the successor club Haravgi A.E.S. took a massive step in his career by getting transferred to AEL in the summer of 1995 under new manager Giannis Mantzourakis.
The same year midfielder Kostas Mangos caught the eye of OFI's Dutch manager Eugène Gerards and was subsequently signed by the club from Heraklion. Maggos would later on return to his hometown to play for AEL in the Greek Beta Ethniki, after even being part of an OFI squad that played in the 1997-98 UEFA Cup against teams like Ferencváros and Auxerre.[2] Panagiotis Migas is also another former Haravgi footballer who became a member of AEL in 1998, without nevertheless featuring in any official game.[3]

Haravgi Larissa F.C. produced one of the youngest ever footballers to score a hat-trick in a debut game. Just 14 year old striker Ntinos Pontikas scored all three goals of his team in an 4-3 away defeat by Ampelokipoi Larissa in 1996. In that game, future Greece international defender Vangelis Moras was on the bench being a squad member of AO Ampelokipoi, the club he started his career from. Despite the fact that Pontikas was considered a great prospect during his youth career he would surprisingly quit football a few years later, several months after his transfer to another local team Ikaros Neapolis fell through. His feat still remains a record in greek football.[4][5]

A new sports club was formed in the early 2000s under the name of Haravgi Larissa A.E.S, (Greek: Αθλητικός και Εκπολιτιστικός Σύλλογος Χαραυγή) using orange and grey as its colours. For many it is considered the continuation of the old club. The new club started playing in the Thessaliko ground [13] [14] instead of the traditional Anthoupoli ground which Haravgi Larissa used to share with their arch rivals Anthoupoli Larissa.[15] It later created a basketball and a handball department. Both Dimitris Pappas and Konstantinos Mangos have also played for the successor club Haravgi A.E.S. in the later stages of their career.[16][17] Dimitris Pappas is the current coach of team that competes in the Larissa FCA B Division for the 2020-21 season.[18]

Koltsidas, Vangelis (2018). ΤΟ ΕΡΑΣΙΤΕΧΝΙΚΟ ΠΟΔΟΣΦΑΙΡΟ ΣΤΟ ΝΟΜΟ ΛΑΡΙΣΑΣ (PDF). p. 83.