On 3 October 2022, AEK played Ionikos in the first official match at the club’s new stadium in Nea Filadelfeia. Behind one goal stood Gate 21, filled with black-and-yellow flags and the symbols of Original 21. For outsiders, it was simply the number of a stadium entrance. For AEK supporters, it represented a journey that had started almost half a century earlier.
The occasion carried another layer of meaning. Original 21 was celebrating its 40th anniversary in the same year that AEK finally returned home, 19 years after the demolition of the Nikos Goumas Stadium. The group had survived the loss of Skepasti, almost two decades at the Olympic Stadium, financial collapse and the club’s fall into the third division. Its return to Gate 21 completed a circle that began in 1975.
The First Gate 21
The first organised AEK supporters’ association, Gate 21, was established in 1975. Its name came from the entrance at the Nikos Goumas Stadium where the club’s most committed followers gathered. The group emerged shortly after the fall of Greece’s military dictatorship, when political participation, neighbourhood organisations and collective action were becoming increasingly visible throughout Greek society.
Gate 21 initially operated from a rented underground space in Agios Nikolaos, only a few railway stops from Nea Filadelfeia. Meetings, travel arrangements and discussions about AEK took place there, creating a structure that went far beyond simply attending matches. By the beginning of the 1980s, however, disagreements had developed over leadership, independence and the direction of the organisation.
Greek press accounts identify a disagreement surrounding a supporters’ event at the Caravel Hotel as the immediate trigger for the final split. The event itself was only part of a much deeper conflict between those who wanted to continue with the existing organisation and a faction demanding a more active, independent presence within AEK. In 1982, the second faction left and founded Original 21.
The name expressed exactly what its founders believed they represented. Original 21 could be understood as the “Genuine Gate 21”, maintaining the number and the original idea while separating itself from the previous leadership. Dimitris Hatzichristos became the defining figure of the new organisation.
The Birth of Original and the Skepasti Years
Although the new group retained the number 21, its members moved across the Nikos Goumas Stadium to Gates 9 and 11. This was the covered section known as Skepasti, a compact terrace close to the pitch that would become one of the most recognisable ends in Greek football.
Skepasti offered the conditions needed to develop a stronger and more coordinated style of support. Drums, large flags, banners and continuous chanting turned the stand into the vocal centre of the stadium. Its low roof helped contain the sound, while the close distance from the pitch allowed the terrace to place constant pressure on the match below.
Original quickly developed its own visual language. Greek reports credit a member remembered as Kostas “the Hero” with designing the famous bomb emblem that became closely associated with the group. Original also introduced a skull-and-crossbones flag during its first year, using pirate imagery to express defiance and an uncompromising terrace identity.
The bomb, the skull and the black-and-yellow colours soon appeared on flags, stickers, scarves and banners throughout Greece. They were not created by a marketing department or sold as part of an official club campaign. They came directly from the group and became recognisable because supporters carried them from Skepasti to away sectors across the country.
Hatzichristos and a Different Way of Organising
Dimitris Hatzichristos was not simply a capo standing at the front of the terrace. He understood that an organised group needed communication, local structures and a permanent relationship with its members. Original used a telephone answering service through which supporters could hear recorded messages containing news, instructions and information about upcoming matches and away trips.
The group also published the Efimeridaki, its small newspaper distributed outside the stadium before matches. Hatzichristos wrote under the name “Anti-hooligan”, presenting his views on AEK, supporter culture and events surrounding the club. He later appeared through a television programme at a time when private television was still developing in Greece and long before supporters could communicate through websites or social media.
One of the best-known stories about him concerned his small motorbike, which he named “Dusan” in honour of AEK great Dusan Bajevic. The name reflected Hatzichristos’s admiration for a man who had represented AEK as both a player and coach. It later acquired bitter irony when Bajevic left AEK for Olympiacos in 1996, a move that created one of the deepest conflicts between the organised support and a former club icon.
Hatzichristos wanted AEK followed everywhere, including sports that attracted far smaller crowds than football. Basketball, volleyball and other departments were treated as parts of the same club rather than secondary attractions. This principle helped Original build an identity around AEK as an entire institution, not only its football team.
The Domatiaki and a Network Beyond Athens
Original expanded rapidly during the 1980s and 1990s. Local branches appeared across Athens, northern Greece, the islands and numerous provincial cities. These clubs organised transport, recruited younger supporters, distributed group material and ensured that AEK had an organised presence far beyond Nea Filadelfeia.
In 1989, with financial help from AEK supporters, Original acquired its famous meeting place at Argentine Republic Square in Athens. It became known as the Domatiaki, meaning “the little room”. Despite its modest size, it developed into one of the organisation’s most important symbols.
The Domatiaki was not a neighbourhood or district, as it has occasionally been described in English-language accounts. It was the group’s central meeting point, a place where away trips, publications, initiatives and internal decisions were organised. For many members, entering the room represented an introduction to the culture and unwritten rules of Original.
The network eventually extended outside Greece. Branches and communities connected with Original appeared in Cyprus, London, Sydney, Melbourne and other cities with significant Greek populations. This international presence enabled supporters raised far from Athens to maintain a connection with AEK and the organised scene surrounding the club.
Friends Abroad and Enemies at Home
Original’s best-known international friendship is with Commando Ultra ’84 of Olympique Marseille. The relationship developed after AEK and Marseille met in the 1989/90 European Cup, when direct contact between the two groups produced a friendship that continued long after the matches were over.
Members travelled to support one another, exchanged banners and hosted visiting supporters in Athens and Marseille. When the clubs met again in the 2023/24 Europa League, the relationship was displayed openly through joint gatherings, marches and messages inside both stadiums. It was a rare European fixture in which friendship between the organised groups was more important than hostility between the teams.
During the early 2000s, Original also developed a close relationship with the left-wing ultras of Livorno. Together, Original 21, Commando Ultra ’84 and the Livorno ultras became associated with the “Triangle of Brotherhood”. Their connection was built through personal contact, reciprocal visits and broadly similar anti-fascist positions.
Original has also maintained contacts with supporters connected to St. Pauli and Partizan Minsk, although these should be treated as separate relationships rather than parts of the same triangle. Within Greece, the strongest hostility is directed towards Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, while matches against PAOK have also carried decades of tension.
Politics, Refugee Memory and Controversy
Original 21 is widely associated with left-wing and anti-fascist positions, although the wider AEK fan base is not politically uniform. Its identity is closely connected with AEK’s foundation in 1924 by Greek refugees from Constantinople. Displacement, refugee memory and the working-class character of many AEK neighbourhoods remain central to how the group presents itself.
Anti-Nazi, anti-racist and pro-refugee banners have appeared regularly in the AEK end. During the 2018 Europa League tie against Dynamo Kyiv, Original displayed explicit anti-Nazi messages in several languages. In 2019, a banner shown during a match against Volos condemned the Turkish military operation in north-eastern Syria and expressed solidarity with Kurdish civilians.
The group’s political actions have also caused controversy. Before AEK’s UEFA Cup match against Hibernian in September 2001, chanting and anti-American protests disrupted a minute of silence for the victims of the September 11 attacks. Supporters involved described their actions as a protest against American foreign policy and selective remembrance, but the incident attracted international criticism and remains one of the most disputed moments in the history of the AEK terraces.
Original has never been free from the wider problems surrounding Greek terrace culture. Matches involving AEK have included violence, confrontations with rivals and clashes with police. Any serious account of the group must recognise those incidents without reducing more than four decades of activity exclusively to them.
The Loss of Skepasti
The Nikos Goumas Stadium was demolished in 2003, bringing the Skepasti period to an abrupt end. For Original, the loss was not simply a change of venue. The group had lost the physical space in which its rituals, symbols and relationships had developed.
AEK eventually moved its home matches to the Athens Olympic Stadium, commonly known as OAKA. Original established itself in the end around the sections between Gates 1 and 35, opposite the part of the stadium numbered Gate 21. The vast Olympic bowl was very different from Skepasti, with a running track, a larger capacity and supporters positioned much farther from the pitch.
Maintaining coordinated support in such an environment was difficult. The group nevertheless continued organising choreographies and away trips while following AEK’s football, basketball and other departments. The campaign for a return to Nea Filadelfeia remained a permanent part of its banners and public statements.
From the Administration to the Third Division
Original’s influence became particularly visible in 2008, when a ticket connected with the group won elections and assumed control of Amateur AEK. Hatzichristos served as president between 2008 and 2011, with the administration seeking to strengthen the institution by attracting 10,000 registered members.
The development showed how far Original had moved beyond the role of a conventional supporters’ club. Its leading figures were now taking formal responsibility for parts of AEK during a period of financial instability. This influence was respected by some supporters and criticised by others who believed the organised scene had become too closely involved in club affairs.
In 2013, the football club collapsed under the weight of its financial problems. AEK left the professional divisions and restarted in the third tier, while Hatzichristos stepped away from the leadership of Original after more than 30 years. The organisation continued without a single dominant figure and followed the team to small grounds that had never expected to host one of Greece’s largest travelling supports.
The third-division season became a demonstration that AEK’s crowd was not dependent on opponents, television exposure or the level of competition. Original remained present as the club began its return through the divisions. The period strengthened the group’s claim that support for AEK mattered most when the club was at its weakest.
Forty Years and the Return Home
The opening ceremony of AEK’s new stadium took place on 30 September 2022. Three days later, the first official match was played against Ionikos, with Original occupying Gate 21 behind the goal. The group had returned to Nea Filadelfeia in the same year that it celebrated four decades of activity.
The timing gave the number 21 a new meaning. It connected the original Gate 21 of 1975, the creation of Original in 1982, the Skepasti years and the modern terrace inside AEK’s new home. The group no longer stood in the physical location of the old Gate 21, but the historical reference had been restored.
AEK won the Greek league and cup double during its first season back in Nea Filadelfeia. The celebrations inside and outside the stadium produced some of the first defining images of the new Gate 21. After years spent campaigning for a return, Original was able to celebrate a championship in the neighbourhood where its history had begun.
Michalis Katsouris and a Gate Carrying His Name
On 7 August 2023, 29-year-old AEK supporter Michalis Katsouris died after being stabbed during violence outside the stadium in Nea Filadelfeia. The incidents occurred before a scheduled Champions League qualifier between AEK and Dinamo Zagreb, which UEFA subsequently postponed. The identity of the person who inflicted the fatal wound was not immediately established.
Katsouris’s death deeply affected Original and the wider AEK community. His name, image and the message “Michalis lives” became permanent features of the terrace. Tributes appeared at AEK matches and among friendly supporter groups outside Greece.
On the first anniversary of his death, Original organised a blood-donation initiative in Nea Filadelfeia. Later that day, Gate 21 was officially given the name Michalis Katsouris and a commemorative plaque was unveiled. The home of Original now carries the name of one of its own members.
The Death of Dimitris Hatzichristos
Dimitris Hatzichristos died on 5 June 2025 at the age of 67 after a long period of serious health problems. Tributes came from every section of AEK and from supporters of rival Greek clubs, showing the respect he had earned far beyond his own terrace.
He had transformed a split within Gate 21 into an organisation with branches across Greece and abroad. Through the Domatiaki, recorded telephone messages, the Efimeridaki, television appearances and constant travel, he helped create a communication network long before the digital era. His methods shaped several generations of AEK supporters.
Original 21 continued after his departure in 2013 and remained active after his death. That continuity is perhaps the clearest indication that the organisation had become larger than any single individual. The structure created during the Skepasti years was strong enough to survive the loss of its stadium, its leader and the professional collapse of the football club.
From an underground meeting place in Agios Nikolaos to Skepasti, from OAKA to the new stadium in Nea Filadelfeia, Original 21 has accompanied every major change in modern AEK supporter culture. Gate 21 now carries the name of Michalis Katsouris, while the symbols introduced in 1982 remain above the terrace. The locations and generations have changed, but the organised voice behind AEK has kept the same name.