SK Jugoslavija


Sportski klub Jugoslavija, commonly known as SK Jugoslavija was a Serbian football club from Belgrade. It was originally formed as SK Velika Srbija in 1913 and changed its name to SK Jugoslavija in 1919. They were among the most popular Serbian and Yugoslav clubs, and they were nicknamed as "Crveni" because of their red shirts, in opposition to their greatest rivals BSK, who wore blue and were known as "Plavi". Until 1941 the sports society Jugoslavija, beside football, also included sections for athletics, cycling, winter sports, basketball, boxing, wrestling, swimming and table tennis.

History

The club was founded on August 6, 1913 in the restaurant "Kasino" in Belgrade, by a group of dissidents from another Belgrade football club – BSK. Dissatisfied over a decision to travel to Austria-Hungary in order to play a friendly match with Hajduk Split, this group left BSK and formed their own club, naming it Sportski klub Velika Srbija. The leader of the group was Danilo Stojanović, better known as Čika Dača, considered one of the major pioneers of football in the Kingdom of Serbia. Beside a group of former BSK players, the squad was formed by footballers from another Belgrade club, SK Slavija from Belgrade suburb Vračar, a number of players from another club formed by Stojanović, FK Šumadija, and Czech footballers Edvard Mifek, Venčel Petrovický and Alois Machek. The first match was played against BSK, a 2–0 loss. In 1914 they become the champions of the Serbian Olympic Cup which was considered to be the first organised football club competition in the Kingdom. The final was played on May 11 in Košutnjak in the field of BSK in which Velika Srbija won Šumadija by 3–1 with two goals from Alois Machek and one from Mileta Jovanović.
With the beginning of the First World War in 1914 the club suspended its activities. It reappeared in 1919 renamed SK Jugoslavija, as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was created a year earlier and colloquially named Jugoslavija from the beginning. The first post-war match was played against a team of British sailors, a 9–0 win, which was the first time the club played with a red kit, which will characterize them from then on and become the main reason for their nickname The Reds. Until then, they had been wearing green. That same year the field where the matches were played was reconstructed and an athletic track and a new football and tennis fields were created. That field, named Trkalište, located close to city centre, will be demolished in 1925 when the club moved to a new one, founded in the area of Belgrade known as Topčidersko Brdo, exactly in the area the Red Star Stadium is located now. The new stadium had a capacity of 30,000 spectators, and included an athletics track, a grass pitch, a training field and a club house. It was officially inaugurated on 24 April 1927. In 1932 illumination system was installed. The exhibitional match against Racing Club Paris on June 22, 1932, became the first ever night match to be played in Yugoslavia. In the period between the wars, there were two sports newspapers in Belgrade which also followed the trend marked by the rivalry of the city derby, Sportista, which was close to BSK, and Sport, close to Jugoslavija.
SK Jugoslavija won the Yugoslav Championship in 1924 and 1925, and participated in 14, out of 17, final stages of the Yugoslav Championship. Jugoslavia also won the Yugoslav Cup in 1936.
In 1941 the club changed its name to SK 1913 after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia. During the years of occupation, the Yugoslav Championship was no longer played, with SK Jugoslavija continuing to compete in the Serbian League, which had been earlier a qualifying league for the final stage of the Yugoslav Championship, but now became the national championship of the German occupied Serbia. The Serbian League as top tier was played from 1941 until 1944 and had three editions, the first of which was won by SK Jugoslavija, and the following two by BSK.

Dissolution

After World War II, the club was disbanded by the new communist authorities in 1945 and most of its property, including the stadium and the training ground, was handed over to the newly founded Red Star Belgrade. After the end of war, several pre-war Yugoslav clubs were dissolved because they had played matches during the war and were labelled collaborators by Marshal Tito's communist authorities. Two of those clubs from Belgrade were the historical SK Jugoslavija and BSK. Red Star received Jugoslavija's stadium and offices. However, Red Star Belgrade has always considered itself to have not been a successor to SK Jugoslavija, while there are some fans claiming it should be considered such, without denying Red Star's foundation date. On the other hand, OFK Beograd, which was formed on the remains of BSK, claims continuity with BSK.

Name

For all former club players with Wikipedia articles, please see: :Category:SK Jugoslavija players.

Coaches

This is an incomplete chronological list of SK Jugoslavija coaches: