Maccabi Sha'arayim F.C.

Maccabi Sha'arayim

Full name	Maccabi Sha'arayim Football Club
Ground	Maccabi Sha'arayim Stadium, Rehovot
League	Liga Bet South B
2010–11	2nd

Maccabi Sha'arayim (Hebrew: מכבי שעריים‎) is an Israeli football club based in Rehovot. They currently play in the South B division of Liga Bet, but spent seven seasons in the top division from 1963-1969 and in the 1985-86 season.

History

The club was promoted to Liga Leumit (then the top division) for the first time in 1963. In their first season in the league they finished 11th out of 15. The following season the club finished sixth, which remains their highest ever league position. In the 1965-66 season they narrowly avoided relegation, finishing one place above the relegation zone. In 1969 Maccabi reach the cup final for the first (and to date only) time, but lost 1-0 to Hakoah Ramat Gan. In the same season they finished second bottom of the league and were relegated back to Liga Alef.

The final match of the 1971-72 season saw the club have a chance to return to the top flight, but they lost 2-1 to Hapoel Marmorek, who went up instead. Two years later they qualified for the promotion/relegation play-offs, but failed to win any of their five matches and finished bottom of the group. At the end of the 1977-78 season they finished bottom of Liga Artzit (the second division) on goal difference (the bottom five clubs all finished on 19 points) and were relegated to Liga Alef (now the third tier). In 1984 they returned to Liga Artzit, and won a second consecutive promotion, returning to Liga Leumit for the first time in 16 years. However, they finished bottom, and were relegated back to Liga Artzit.

The club dropped back into the third tier at the end of the 1992-93 season, and were relegated to the fourth tier at the end of the 2000-01 season, before dropping into Liga Bet, the fifth tier.