Football club Vojvodina celebrates its 109th birthday today. On this occasion, member of the Board of Directors of FK Vojvodina Petar Đurđev and president of the Association of Veterans of FK Vojvodina Miladin Purać laid a wreath on the memorial plaque in Temerinska street number 12 in Novi Sad, the same place where the Vojvodina Football Club was founded on this day in 1914.
The member of the Board of Directors, Petar Đurđev, addressed the representatives of the club, veterans, fans and journalists, and emphasized the importance of FK Vojvodina for the City of Novi Sad and Serbian football.
– I had the honor to address all of you today in front of the Management Club of FK Vojvodina on this joyous holiday – 109 years since our club was established. Looking at our country, our culture, our economy, our sport, the biggest problem that everyone faces is the lack of continuity, and precisely because of this, if we look from this place, from a tailor’s shop, where our club was founded, how important and great Vojvodina is and not only for Novi Sad, but also for the whole of Serbia. If we look at all the countries today, from Australia to Canada, everywhere we will see our players who have achieved great results in this beautiful game that we all love so much, which is soccer – said Đurđev.
He also pointed out how heroic it was at the time of the founding of FK Vojvodina.
– In 1914, in the month of March, a group of young men gathered here, driven by love for sports and their people, and then they decided to make that one act of rebellion and act of courage and to found a sports club for the Serbian community in Novi Sad. How hard those years and bad times were is also shown by the fact that at that time the Austrian Emperor Joseph I abolished all the autonomy that the Serbs once had in Austria-Hungary. In 1913, the Serbian patriarch Lukijan Bogdanović mysteriously disappeared, and later it was found out that he was beheaded and thus ended his life. Since 1913, the head of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff has asked as many as 32 times to declare war on Serbia. And in such a moment, when everything Serbian was under surveillance and on the crosshairs, a group of young men and our heroes from Rotkvarija, Podbara and Salajka secretly founded that club, a symbol like an ancient hero – recalled Đurđev.
Since then, until today, Vojvodina has produced numerous world-class football players and will continue to do so in the coming decades.
– Decades followed, the club grew, flourished and strengthened and created footballers who not only made Novi Sad, but also the whole of world football. Let’s just remember today the recently deceased Siniša Mihajlović, who took his first significant steps in his career precisely in our club, and how much the whole world was shaken by his untimely death. At this moment, where some new Mihajlović players are growing up under the hand of director Duško Grujić, and when the players of our school Dušan Tadić and the Milinković-Savić brothers are in the national team, it shows how important Vojvodina is. Basically, 109 years of existence shows how much Vojvodina has become part of the cultural identity of our city. With the set, today I remember my first big celebration, in 1984 and the 70th birthday of Vojvodina, and today we celebrate the 109th. Next year we have another important jubilee waiting for us, apart from the 110th birthday, we will celebrate a whole century, 100 years since the ball is rolling in our stadium Karađorđe. I hope that even then we will organize a magnificent event and that we will all together celebrate such an important jubilee for Novi Sad and Serbian football – pointed out Petar Đurđev.
After laying the wreath, the celebration of the 109th birthday continues with an appropriate cocktail in the VIP lounge of the Karađorđe stadium.
