It was extremely nice and interesting today at the Karađorđe stadium, where the members of the first champion generation of Vojvodina held the so-called Champion class for boys from the Youth Academy Ilija Pantelić.
On this day, exactly 55 years ago, Vojvodina won its first championship title, and today’s Championship hour was just an introduction to the central celebration on the occasion of this great jubilee, which is planned for tonight at 8:15 PM on the ship Zeppelin in Novi Sad.
Dressed in red and white jerseys of Vojvodina, with balloons and flags with the motifs of the Old Lady, boys born between 2007 and 2010 listened carefully to what members of the first champion generation of Vojvodina Vasa Pušibrk and Radivoj Radosav told them, and most of all about how to become a true champion, and that, beside hard work, the main thing that brought them the title 55 years ago was great friendship within the team and great love for football, as well as for Vojvodina itself.
Apart from Vasa Pušibrk and Radivoj Radosav, today’s gathering was attended by numerous other veterans from other generations of FK Vojvodina, as well as the president of the club Dragoljub Samardžić, a member of the Management Board Petar Đurđev, the President of the Assembly Milan N. Đukić, director of the Youth Academy Ilija Pantelić Duško Grujić, fans, media representatives and others.
The children from Voša’s Youth Academy were first greeted by a member of the Management Board of FK Vojvodina, Petar Đurđev, who introduced himself as the director of the Archives of the City of Novi Sad, but also an eternal fan and lover of the Old Lady from his earliest youth.
– We have a huge honor that today we stand in a place where football has been played for almost 100 years. On Vidovdan in 1924, the management of FK Vojvodina and SK Juda Maccabi built this sports field, which became a permanent home for players and fans of Vojvodina, a club that emerged as a boy’s dream of young men who were not much older than you today. These guys from Podbara, Salajka and Rotkvarija, in the desire for national equality, made the first Serbian sports club in Novi Sad – said Đurđev, noting to the children that Vojvodina wears its red and white colors as a reflection of friendship with Slavia Prague, and the blue star in the coat of arms so that all the colors from the Serbian flag would be represented in the coat of arms of FK Vojvodina.
After him, holding the champion’s trophy from 1966 in his hand, the boys from the Youth Academy Ilija Pantelić were officially addressed by a member of the first champion generation of Vojvodina, Vasa Pušibrk, today the president of the Old Lady’s Veterans Section, calling them “real Vojvodina fans” and emphasizing that the greatest successes throughout history were brought to Vojvodina by those who loved it the most.
– First of all, it is important that you love what you do, and at FC Vujadin Boškov you have extraordinary conditions to become top players like Tadić, Milinković-Savić and others who grew up there, and today they play successfully in Europe. At your age, we trained here across the stadium, on a field sprinkled with black clay, but we had top coach Franjo Hirman. He was the center forward of Vojvodina, and as a coach he was able to recognize exactly in each of us who has talent and who truly loves football – said Pušibrk, emphasizing that only individuals from his generation, while they were still in Youth Academy, had the honor to play in the stadium in matches that were overtures for first team games.
The president of FK Vojvodina, Dragoljub Samardžić, then addressed the audience, emphasizing that Vasa Pušibrk’s previous speech caused him mixed feelings, because it represents the link between the slag on which training used to be and the comfort that modern life provides.
– I am very happy and excited to be able to address you here today, and the history, size and significance of our club in the city and beyond are well known to all of us. On behalf of the Board of Directors and all employees of FK Vojvodina, I cordially congratulate our champions, who managed to make things unforgettable in difficult times. What they did was repeated by only one more generation in the 107 years of the club’s existence. Today, Vojvodina lives completely differently, decisions are made quickly, but our great obligation is to keep the champions and the memory of them – said Samardžić, emphasizing that this memory is best preserved through the vision of how the current children of Vojvodina become new champions.
After the official part of today’s event, children from the Youth Academy Ilija Pantelić took photos with members of the first champion generation of the Old Lady Vasa Pušibrk and Radivoj Radosav, used the opportunity to hear some more interesting stories from the past and useful tips for the future, and even to briefly show their football skills with the ball.
The celebration of the 55th anniversary of winning the first championship title of FK Vojvodina will continue tonight at 8:15 on the ship Zeppelin in Novi Sad, in the presence of a large number of former players of the Old Lady and distinguished guests from public life, and the plan is phenomenal multimedia program, spectacular fireworks over the Danube and much more, which will mark in a magnificent and appropriate way the great success that Vojvodina has achieved 55 years ago, when it became the first team in the former Yugoslavia to break the myth of the so-called “big four” and won the title in front of Red Star, Partizan, Dinamo and Hajduk.
