Ask any Manchester United devotee from an earlier generation about the meaning of May 26th, 1999, and the answer will be that the date was life-altering. It was the night when dramatic late goals from Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær completed an incredible come-from-behind victory in the European Cup final against Bayern Munich at the Camp Nou. It was also, the world of one United fan in Bulgaria, who recently died at the 62 years old, took a new direction.
That supporter was originally called Marin Levidzhov in Svishtov, a place with a tight-knit community. Being raised in communist Bulgaria with a devotion to football, he longed to legally altering his identity to… his beloved club. Yet, to claim the name of a sports team from the other side of the Iron Curtain was an unattainable goal. Any effort to do so before the fall of the regime, he would likely have faced imprisonment.
Ten years after the fall of the regime in Bulgaria – on that night in May 1999 – Marin's idiosyncratic dream came one step closer to fulfillment. Tuning in from home from his simple residence in Svishtov and with the score against them, Marin made a promise to himself: should his team mount a comeback, he would spare no effort to change his name that of the team he adored. Then, a miracle occurred.
A lifelong wish to walk the halls of the famous stadium came true.
The next day, Marin sought legal counsel to present his unique case, thus beginning a long, hard battle. The parent who inspired him, from whom he had learned to support the club, was no longer alive, and the 36-year-old was living with his mother, working all kinds of odd jobs, including as a builder on £15 a day. He was hardly making ends meet, yet his aspiration grew into a mania. He rapidly evolved into the local celebrity, then was featured globally, but 15 years full of court cases and setbacks in litigation were to come.
His request was denied early on for copyright reasons: he was not permitted to adopt the name of a trademark known around the globe. Then a presiding magistrate ruled partially in his favour, saying Marin could modify his forename to the city name but that he was not to use United as his family name. “But I don’t want to be named after a city in England, I want to wear the name of my favourite football club,” Marin told the court. The struggle continued.
When not in court, he was often caring for his feline friends. He had many animals in his outdoor space in Svishtov and cherished them equally with the Red Devils. He named them all after club legends: such as Vidic and others, they were the best-known felines in town. Who was his preferred pet of Man U? The feline known as Beckham.
He was often seen in full club regalia.
He achieved a further success in court: he was allowed to add the club name as an recognized alias on his ID card. But he remained dissatisfied. “I won’t stop until my full name is as I desire,” he declared. His tale attracted financial opportunities – a chance to have supporters' goods made using his identity – but despite his financial struggles, he rejected the opportunity because he was unwilling to gain financially from his adored institution. The Manchester United name was sacred to him.
His story was captured in 2011. The crew turned Marin’s dream of experiencing the Theatre of Dreams and there he even met Dimitar Berbatov, the Bulgaria striker then at the club at the time.
Permanently marked the team emblem on his face subsequently as a protest against the judicial outcomes and in his final years it became increasingly hard for him to keep up the struggle. Work was limited and he lost his mother to the virus. But against the odds, he persevered. By birth a Catholic, he was christened in an orthodox church under the name the identity he sought. “In the eyes of the divine, I am with my true identity,” he would frequently remark.
This Monday, 13 October, his heart stopped beating. It is possible that the club's restless soul could at last be at rest.
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