Hrvatski Nogometni klub Hajduk Split, commonly referred to as Hajduk Split (), is a Croatian professional football club based in Split. They compete in the Croatian Football League (HNL), the top tier of Croatian football. Since 1979, the club's home ground has been the 33,987-seater Stadion Poljud. The team's traditional home colours are white shirts with blue shorts and blue socks.
The idea to form a football club was started by a group of Split students who were studying in Prague. Hajduk was founded on 13 February 1911. They are one of the most successful teams in Croatia, having won six Croatian league championships, eight Croatian cup titles, and five Croatian Super Cup titles. It has one of the "Big Four" clubs – along with Dinamo Zagreb, Rijeka, and Osijek – never relegated from its country's top football league. Hajduk's biggest European achievements are appearances in three European Cup quarter-finals, one UEFA Cup semi-final and one Cup Winners' Cup semi-final.
The club's main rivals are Dinamo Zagreb, with matches between the two referred to as the "Eternal Derby". Hajduk Split fans are called Torcida Split, who are the oldest organized firm in Europe, being founded in 1950.
History
Origins
The club was founded in its city of Split after the idea to form a football club came to the founders during their time studying in Prague. The idea came to them while at the centuries-old pub U Fleků in Prague (then also part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). The founders were Fabjan Kaliterna, Lucijan Stella, Ivan Šakić and Vjekoslav Ivanišević.Dalibor Brozović. "Hrvatska enciklopedija: Volume 1", 1999. They went to the pub following a match between AC Sparta and SK Slavia and decided it was time their own city had a professional football club. They all knew how popular the sport was in their home city of Split, and how well their friends could play.
The club was officially registered with the authorities on 13 February 1911. While trying to come up with a name for the club (other options including "Velebit", "Uskok", "Marjan", and "Jedinstvo"), the students went to their old teacher Josip Barač for advice on what name to give the club. When the students enthusiastically stormed into his office, he told them they charged in like "Hajduks", who were Robin Hood-like guerilla warriors, freedom fighters and Croatian patriots. Professor Barač told them to take the name "Hajduk" which symbolized, as the professor said, "that which is best in our people: bravery, humanity, friendship, love of freedom, defiance to powers, and protection of the weak. Be worthy of that great name".
Hajduks were romanticized outlaws that fought the rule of the Ottoman Turks. It is speculated that famed hajduk Andrijica Šimić, who triumphantly arrived in Split in 1902 to cheering crowds (after a long stint in an Austrian prison), was perhaps the inspiration for the name. The founders subsequently designed the club's emblem, and a group of Catholic nuns from a monastery in Split, created copies which were distributed to fans.Hajduk's membership pass – Lord help us! , Slobodna Dalmacija Both the name and the checkered board on the crest were found provocative by the Monarchy, but it eventually allowed them having been convinced that a football club is a good way to train soldiers.
Hajduk gathered the pro-Croat party of citizens of Split, Croat unionists or puntari. That is why the club specifically has the name "hrvatski nogometni klub" ("Croatian football club") and has the Croatian coat-of-arms in its crest. The club itself was against the Austrian-Hungarian government's policy of not allowing the unification of the Croatian provinces and keeping them separated (the government and the emperor did not allow the reunion of Dalmatia with the rest of Croatia). Hajduk's first opponent were Calcio Spalato, the club of an autonomist party from in Split, and the match ended with a 9–0 (6–0) victory for Hajduk. The first to score for Hajduk was Šime Raunig, legend has it – with his knee.
In 1912, Hajduk played their first match in Zagreb against the HAŠK football club, and lost 3–2. The first international match against an eminent opponent was held in 1913 against Czech club Slavia Prague,Slavia which at that time were one of the strongest squads in Europe. Hajduk ended up losing the match 1–13 (0–13). After the formation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, Hajduk first entered the Yugoslav league in 1923, losing their first and only match that season against SAŠK. However, that same year while on tour in North Africa, Hajduk defeated Marseille 3–2 in their first international match, sparking mass celebrations in Split. The next year, the squad was considered so strong that 10 out of the 11 players which played an international friendly for Yugoslavia against Czechoslovakia were contracted to Hajduk (only exception being the goalkeeper, as Hajduk had an Italian goalkeeper at the time).
In 1926, in honour of the club's 15th birthday, composer Ivo Tijardović dedicated the operetta to the club, making it the only football club in the world to have its own operetta. Apart from the national championship, from 1920 to 1936 Hajduk continuously competed in Dalmatian Championship, having won all but one of them.
Hajduk reached their first period of glory in the late 1920s, when they won their first two Yugoslav championships (1927 and 1929), which earned them a slot in the Central European Cup. Some of the best players in that period were Leo Lemešić and Vladimir Kragić, with Ljubo Benčić becoming the best goalscorer of the 1927 season. A long-time coach of the team was one of the club's greats, Luka Kaliterna.
During the 6 January Dictatorship, the adjective "Croatian" in "Croatian Football Club" was forcibly replaced by the adjective "Yugoslav", to the dismay of the team.
The 1930s proved disastrous for Hajduk, as they won no tournaments or championships, recording only a few successes in international matches.
They did manage to win one title during the Banovina of Croatia era in 1940–41, with an impressive 14–3–1 record. As a Croatian champion, the club was about to play the playoffs for Yugoslav championship, but with World War II emerging, the championship was never finished. During this time, Hajduk could have had a fantastic generation led by young Frane Matošić, Ratko Kacijan, and prominent Czech international Jiří Sobotka.
World War II In April 1941, during World War II, Yugoslavia was invaded, occupied and carved up by the Axis powers, with Split being annexed directly into Italy. Residents and players were both opposed to the assimilation to Italy, and thus the club ceased to compete in defiance throughout the occupation of Split, declining an offer to join the Italian first division under the name "AC Spalato". Instead, Benito Mussolini founded Societa Calcio Spalato, and renamed the club's home ground after his son. After the capitulation of Italy in 1943, the Partisans temporarily liberated Split and disarmed the Italian garrison, but the German Army quickly re-occupied the city and granted it to the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) they had installed in Zagreb in 1941. The attitude of the club did not change when the NDH authorities attempted to include Hajduk in the Independent State of Croatia Cup, as NDH earned resentment in Split for allying and partitioning them to Italy. With the Allies invading southern Italy and controlling the Mediterranean, the Adriatic islands became a haven for the resistance, prompting Hajduk's rebirth on one of them in 1944.
The club's players then joined the Partisan general headquarters on the island of Vis in the Adriatic. On 7 May 1944, on the Feast of Saint Domnius, the patron saint of Split, in the presence of Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito's and British officers (one of them being Randolph Churchill) Hajduk was formed again and began playing as the official football team of the Yugoslav resistance. They competed with Allied service football teams from across the Adriatic in Italy, where they famously played the British Army in a friendly match in Bari on 23 September, in front at least 40,000 spectators, losing 2–9.Club Soccer 101 by Luke Dempsey The match is considered to be one of the most attended football games during the war years, with a rematch in liberated Split few years after (Hajduk won 1–0). At this time, the club leadership adopted the Partisans' red star as the badge on the white-and-blue club dress.
In 1945, Hajduk embarked on a tourney through Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Malta. Traveling roughly 30,000 kilometers, and playing over 90 matches, the club won 74 of them. Allied airplanes dropped fliers all over Europe prompting other football clubs to follow Hajduk's example.Cerjan, Stjepan. Hajduk – tim NOVJ u: Enciklopedija hrvatske povijesti i kulture, Školska knjiga, 1980., stranice 195–196. While in Beirut, Charles de Gaulle gave Hajduk the title of honorary team of Free France, the trophy being treasured ever since.
With its proficiency and its "unique Dalmatian spirit", the club reportedly impressed Tito, who frequently attended matches. After the war, he invited Hajduk to move to the Yugoslav capital Belgrade and become the official Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) team, but the club refused, wanting to continue to play in their hometown of Split. One of their biggest future rivals, FK Partizan, were founded instead. However, Hajduk continued to enjoy the reputation of "Tito's favorite" long after the war, and it was because of the friendly relationship with the resistance, it became one of the few Yugoslav football clubs (and the only prominent one) not to be disbanded after the war by the communist government (as was the case with a number of other clubs, especially prominent ones such as BSK, Građanski, Jugoslavija, Concordia, HAŠK and Slavija).
Iconic 1950s
After World War II, Hajduk continued to play in the Yugoslav championship and its cup. In 1946, they won Croatian championship and established the magazine Journal of Hajduk. In 1948–49, Hajduk visited Australia and became the first team from Yugoslavia to play on all continents. The club won the 1950 Yugoslav championship without a single loss, setting a record that no one managed to accomplish before the breakup of Yugoslavia 40 years later. On 28 October 1950, a day before a decisive match against one of its biggest rivals Red Star Belgrade (a 2–1 win), the official fan organization Torcida was founded.Torcida Split: Povijest-Osnivanje Torcide It was created by engineering student Vjenceslav Žuvela, who named it after the enthusiastic Brazilian fans, and Torcida become the first organized group of supporters in Europe.Hajduk Split fans celebrate centenary by engulfing city in flares The following year, reconstruction of "Stari Plac" stadium was finished, and it homed the club for more than three decades.
Consequent seasons showed Hajduk's supremacy, but also the political manipulations to prevent them winning the championships. For one, Torcida was viewed as a hostile organization by the communist authorities, which posed a risk to the national consciousness of the new Yugoslavian state. Hajduk's leadership was sanctioned, the team's captain expelled from the communist party, and Vjenceslav Žuvela imprisoned. Also, during the winter break of the 1952–53 season, following an invitation from Juan Perón, Hajduk went on tour to South America and eventually extended their stay there. This caused them to come home late, but instead of promised delay of games in the Championship, they faced defeat against BSK and a draw with Spartak Subotica as their youth team and couple of veteran players had to play them. Although Hajduk later beat both Red Star (4–1) and Partizan (4–2) in Belgrade, Red Star became the champion by only a two-point margin.