SK Jugoslavija - History

History

The club was founded in 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 the pioneer 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 1903, and Czech footballers Edvard Mifek, Venčel Petrovický and Alojz Mahek. 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 FK Šumadija 1903 by 3:1 with two goals from Alojz Mahek and one from Mileta Jovanović.

With the beginning of the First World War in 1914 the club ceases its activities. It will reapear in 1919 renamed SK Jugoslavija, as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed K. of Yugoslavia in 1929) 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, and will be remembered as 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 nowadays. 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.

SK Jugoslavija won the Yugoslav Championship in 1924 and 1925, and participated in 14, out of 17, final stages of the Yugoslav Championship.

In 1941 it 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 3 editions, the first of which was won by SK Jugoslavija, and the following two by BSK.