85 Goals: Gabor Overtakes Bratoveanu In Farul's All-Time List
Two goals separated Alin Gabor from the club record when this season began; six league goals later, the gap has closed in his favour.
Eighty-five against eighty-three. At the start of this season the distance between Alin Gabor and Dragoş Bratoveanu was two goals, and it was Bratoveanu's name that sat at the top of FCV Farul Constanţa's all-time scoring list. Ten seasons into a Farul career that began in 2054/55, Gabor has moved past him.
The count reads 281 games and 107 goals for Farul in all competitions; the club's own measure of the record is the 85 that now stands above Bratoveanu's 83. Six goals in the Romanian First League this season did the work, a tally that would once have looked like a routine autumn and now carries a little more weight.
There is a neatness to the arithmetic. Gabor has spent his whole senior career at one club, which is not how these lists are usually built; the goals have arrived in a long, even accumulation rather than a burst. Bratoveanu's mark stood long enough to feel permanent. It does not any more.
"I grew up hearing that number," Gabor said. "To pass it is strange. The goals belong to the team that kept giving me the ball."
Farul's support, who have watched the count climb week by week, will tell you the record was never really in doubt once the season started. The table of names says otherwise: two goals is nothing until it is gone. Now it is gone, and the next name on the list has some climbing to do.