Football Matches during Wartime in Zagreb from 1914 to 1918. From “Combined Teams” to the Championship of the City of Zagreb

Abstract

During World War I series of sporting events were organized in Zagreb, most of them being football matches. All sporting events were organized by the Committee for the Organization of Sporting Events for the benefit of the Red Cross, led by Franjo Bučar, a distinguished sport official and president of the Croatian Sports Association before the war. Owing to Bučar’s efforts, as early as in autumn 1914 the first football matches were played in Zagreb. During the war the organizers and the football clubs faced numerous problems. Because of the mobilization and recruitment drives, combined teams with players from multiple clubs had to be organized and the army requisitioned a large part of the sports fields, which made it impossible to obtain the necessary equipment. By the end of 1916, a certain kind of spontaneity in the organization of and in the way in which the matches were played became apparent. From 1917 to the end of the war the Committee for the Organization of Sports Events was much better organized, as were the clubs which started to play with permanent teams. During the final year of the war the land government authorized the re-establishment of old and the establishment of new clubs; the contest for the championship of the city of Zagreb was also initiated. It is pertinent to notice that during wartime, 97 football matches in total were played in Zagreb, whereas the football clubs from Zagreb played only nine football matches in other cities of Croatia and Slavonia and also in Hungary; hence it can be stated that Zagreb football during wartime was primarily of a local character. The majority of matches were played for charitable purposes, mainly for the Red Cross Society, and to a lesser extent for other charitable and humanitarian purposes.