Eternal derby
Macedonian derby

Other names	Вечно дерби Македонско дерби
Location	North Macedonia (Skopje andBitola)
Teams	Vardar Pelister
First meeting	5 August 1990 (official)
Latest meeting	Pelister 1–2 Vardar (Macedonian First League) (5 November 2025)
Stadiums	Toše Proeski Arena (Vardar) Petar Miloševski (Pelister)
Statistics
Meetings total	82
Most wins	Vardar (46)
Largest victory	Vardar 7–0 Pelister (8 May 1996)

Eternal derby (Macedonian:Вечно дерби), also known as theMacedonia derby (Macedonian:Македонско дерби), is the name given to matches between the two most popular clubs fromNorth Macedonia, theSkopje-basedFK Vardar andBitola-basedFK Pelister,^[1] supported byKomiti andČkembari respectively, with fans at times infamously engaging in hooliganism during the derby.^[2][3]

The rivalry can be traced back to the1989–90 season and a match inSkopje, between FK Vardar andRed Star Belgrade. A conflict occurred between the "Skopje fans" and a few Bitola fans who went to cheer for Vardar, who at that time was the most popular Macedonian football club in the formerYugoslavia. On 5 August 1990 inBitola, Pelister and Vardar met in theYugoslav second league and the first incident occurred. From that day forward, started the big rivalry between Komiti and Chkembari along with the Vardar-Pelister match becoming the Eternal derby of Macedonia.

However, the rivalry is playing at the stands but not much at the ground because Vardar there are many more honours than a rival from Bitola. In a present time there is a small number of attendance and Pelister were many times and Vardar once relegated to theMacedonian Second League so the rivalry has lost its formerly importance.^[4] As of May 2018^[update], there have been 68 derbies played in total since the establishment of theMacedonian championship in 1992, with Vardar winning 38 and Pelister 14 games, while 16 matches ended in a draw.

Vardar

Pelister

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Location of both teams

The records does not include the awarded matches and a matches decided by a one goal difference.

Last updated on 5 November 2025.

• Bigger grade difference
  • Vardar
    • Point system 3–1–0: +44 (72 vs 28),2002–03
  • Pelister
    • Point system 3–1–0: +18 (47 vs 29),1999–2000

Colors

  Vardar win
  Draw
  Pelister win

Competitions

• SF = Semi-finals
• QF = Quarter-finals
• R16 = Round of 16

¹ Vardar won 4–2 on penalties and won the one point.
² Match suspended at half-time (score: 0–0) due to the crowd trouble. Later the match was replayed on 1 April, but was another match suspended after 45 minutes (score: 0–1) because of attack on referee. Vardar were awarded a 0–3 win.
³ Match suspended before the kick-off due to the crowd trouble whenČkembari burned seats, collapsed the protective fence and clashed with the police. Vardar were awarded a 0–3 win.
⁴ The 2000–01 Macedonian Cup quarter-final tie was won by Pelister onaway goals rule.
⁵ Pelister was played in the Second League in that season.
⁶ Vardar was played in the Second League in that season.
⁷ Pelister won 3–2 on penalties.

• Dejan Blazhevski (4 goals, 2 forPelister and 2 forVardar)
• Saša Ćirić (2 goals, 1 forPelister and 1 forVardar)
• Mile Dimov (2 goals, 1 forPelister and 1 forVardar)

• Boban Babunski
• Ilija Dimoski
• Kiril Dojchinovski
• Perica Gruevski
• Gjoko Hadjievski
• Alekso Mackov
• Gorazd Mihajlov
• Srgjan Zaharievski

These are the major football honours of Vardar and Pelister.

The table lists the place each team took in each of the seasons.

Key

Source:rsssf.org

• Macedonian derbies article on MacedonianFootball.com

• FK Vardar
• Association football rivalries
• FK Pelister
• 1990 establishments in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia

• CS1 Macedonian-language sources (mk)
• Use dmy dates from April 2017
• Articles containing Macedonian-language text
• Articles containing potentially dated statements from May 2018
• All articles containing potentially dated statements