The Golden Shoe was awarded to Georgy Slavkov of Trakia (Plovdiv), who scored most goals in Europe – 31.
For a second time Bulgarian player was the top scorer in Europe, but it was different this time. Petar Zhekov won the Golden Shoe in 1968-69 with 36 goals. Unlike Zhekov, Slavkov did not play for the top team in the country. Also, he was not a central-forward, constantly supplied with balls and opportunities, made for him. Slavkov was attacking midfielder, who, with time, settled for playmaking role. When Zhekov won the trophy, he was already the top scorer of Bulgaria and he was 25 years old with vast experience – Slavkov was younger, 23 this years, and although highly talented, did not have many games – he practically missed a year, when he was with CSKA (Sofia), but played only 9 games and was moved back to Trakia. At a glance, Slavkov’s achievement was of higher order: young midfielder, who missed about 1/4 of the championship games, but yet scored 31 goals in 23 appearances. His average was higher than Zhekov’s: 1.34 goals per game to 1.24. It was very exciting – young and versatile goalscorer, operating from midfield – this was new and not typical at all. Alas, this season could be judged the best one for Slavkov. He never scored that many goals, did not come even close – on the contrary, his goals were fewer and fewer every next year. One may think his achievement was accidental, but this was not the case – first, Slavkov was not genuine striker and with time his position prevented high scoring. Inevitably so – a playmaker creates opportunities for others. Second, he moved again to play for CSKA, where were many competing scorers and high records became virtually impossible. When years later he was transferred to St. Etienne (France), he was the typical playmaker and scored nothing. May be he was unable to adjust to the new country too, but goals did not come not matter what. Anyhow, he was number one in Europe for 1980-81 season.
Note: the name of his club may be confusing – today it is Botev (Plovdiv). That is the original name of the club, which was renamed in the 1960s to Trakia. The original name was restored after 1989 and records referred to Botev today, thus, at odds with records from the actual time.