Aris ThessalonikiThe name of Aris Thessaloniki refers to Ares, the ancient Greek god of war, chosen on 25 March 1914 in a coffee bar in Thessaloniki's Votsi district by the club's founders, a group of 22 young friends. The choice was no accident: it echoed the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, in which Greece had fought first the Ottoman Empire and then Bulgaria.
After years of competing in regional Macedonian championships, which Aris won fourteen times, the club claimed its first national Greek title in 1928, defeating Atromitos and Ethnikos Piraeus in the deciding matches under German coach Thomas Kessler. Further titles followed in 1932 and 1946, the latter built around striker Kleanthis Vikelidis, nicknamed the "Macedonian Tank", whose name has been officially given to the club's stadium in the Charilaou district since 2004. Since the creation of a unified Greek league in 1959, Aris have not won another championship, though they did claim their only Greek Cup in 1970.
On the European stage, the club is best known for an extraordinary run of 28 consecutive home matches without defeat, stretching from 1968 to 2020, when the sequence was finally ended by Ukraine's Kolos Kovalivka. The yellow-and-blacks have long been one of the pillars of football in the city, and their rivalry with PAOK, as well as with Iraklis, a club named after Heracles, the mythological rival of Ares, remains among the fiercest in Greek football.
Also nicknamed "the God of War", Aris remains one of the most recognisable clubs in Northern Greece, and the atmosphere at the Kleanthis Vikelidis Stadium has for decades been regarded as one of the most intense in the country, regardless of the team's results on the pitch.
