Football club Vojvodina celebrates its 109th birthday today!
On the occasion of this solemn day, today at 11 a.m. a commemorative plaque will be laid where the Vojvodina Football Club was founded, at Temerinska 12 in Novi Sad.
Also, after that, at 12 o’clock, a cocktail party will be held in the VIP box of the Karađorđe stadium.
On this day, it is the right time to remember how our Old Lady came to be.
Football club Vojvodina was founded on March 6, 1914 in Novi Sad by students of the Great Serbian Orthodox High School, which today bears the name Jovan Jovanović Zmaj high school. Among them were future university professor Vladimir Milićević, future chemist Milenko Hinić, future lawyers Radenko Rakić, Kamenko Ćirić and Kosta Hadži, future textile industrialist Milenko Šijakov, then his brother Đorđe and father Sava, as well as Gojko Tošić, Đorđe Živanov, Branko Gospođinački and Živojin Bajazet.
The decision to establish FK Vojvodina was the desire of Serbian youth in Novi Sad to have their own sports club around which to gather. At that time, in Novi Sad, which then belonged to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, there were only three football clubs: the Hungarian NAK and UAK and the Jewish Judah Maccabi.
Taking into account the strained political relations between Austria-Hungary and Serbia and the fact that the First World War was already on the horizon, the Austro-Hungarian authorities did not look kindly on the establishment of a Serbian club in Novi Sad. For this reason, young high school students had to secretly found Vojvodina, practically illegally. This was done in the knitting workshop of Sava Šijakov’s uncle, in Temerinska street number 12, on the site of Tehnometal. It was decided that the name of the club should be Vojvodina, as an association with the former Duchy of Serbia and Tamiški Banat, the crown of the Austrian Empire that existed between 1849 and 1861, and which was created in accordance with the privileges that the Austrian emperor gave to the Serbs back in 1691.
