Jagodina

Beginnings of FK Jagodina (1906–1939)

It was 1906, when Sreten Adžić, today one of the most famous educators of Serbia and former student of the Universities of Vienna and Leipzig, brought the first football from Vienna to Jagodina. As the founder and director of the first male teachers school in the city, he saw in football the educational value of the physical, social and emotional development, as well as the opportunity for development of the youthful mind, with the goal of ethical virtues to maintain.

Over the years, football received more attention from the population and became very popular in the region, so that few months after the end of World War I, more precisely in 1919, the first football club was founded, after initiative of Milan Trifunović and several former Serbian soldiers, and the new club was named JSK Zora.

The first match was organized by Josip Baner, the brother of Franc Baner, who brought the second ball to Jagodina. He had the idea when he returned home from Skopje, and the club played against a combined team of SK Jugoslavija and BSK Belgrade, which they won the match surprising by 6–0 in front of 200 spectators.

In 1921, JSK Zora was disbanded and a new club, named SK Sparta, was formed, but in the same year the club was banned and changed its name in JSK Budućnost, which played in the league system of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In 1923, the club won the League of the Šumadija region, which corresponded to the third national tier. In the meantime, several teams were formed, but were later dissolved and their players formed in 1935 the football club JSK.

During the World War II (1939–1947)

During the World War II, the JSK was one of the strongest clubs in the country, but the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was attacked and occupied by the Axis powers. The region around Jagodina was under Nazi German military occupation by the Wehrmacht, but despite all difficulties, the JSK accomplishes major results in the national competition, in which could not every club participate for different reasons.

So in 1943, where JSK played 45 matches of which were won 32, and achieved the top position of the regional league of Morava Banovina. In the qualifications for the Serbian League, the club defeat Šumadija Kragujevac, however, the following season was postponed and never played. Its last match in this period was played on 25 May 1944, when they won SK Karađorđe from neighboring city Paraćin by 1–0.

On 9 May 1945, the day of the German Instrument of Surrender, which marked the end of the World War II, a new sports club, named SD Polet, was founded and competed in the league of Morava county. In 1946, the club was renamed to FK Nikčević, after Radislav Nikčević, a Serbian resistance fighter from Jagodina who was captured during the war by German soldiers and killed during a liberation struggle. Posthumously he received the title of People's Hero of Yugoslavia and 1951 from President Josip Broz Tito the Order of the People's Hero.

Name changes and club-merger (1947–1962)

In 1947, the FK Nikčević reached the 1/16 finals of the Yugoslav Cup. In 1949, the club renamed again its name, this time to FK Sloga, and competed in the league of Kragujevac. Among the club management belonged then Mile Milovanović, Dušan Stojković and Ljubiša Milosavljević. In 1951, the club was renamed in FK Mladost. 1953 was Rale Ristić the club president and Ostoja Simić the head coach of the team, which met during the Yugoslav Cup the defending champion Partizan Belgrade. Already in 1954, the club received the name FK Morava, named after the Morava, the longest river in Serbia, and on its shores also Jagodina is located.

1957 reached the club for the first time the Yugoslav Second League, specifically the IV Zona, then the second league consisted of five minor leagues. The captain of this generation was Dimitrije Milosavljević. During this same period, other football clubs were formed in Jagodina, including the FK Mladi Radnik in 1948, which was renamed 1952 in FK Jedinstvo. In the same year Jedinstvo won under coach Budimir Milivojević the City Cup, called Liberation of Svetozarevo, than the city bore during the Socialist Yugoslavia the name Svetozarevo after Svetozar Marković. In the finals they defeated previously Morava 3–2.

In 1952, also the FK Svetozarevo was established and soon the club was renamed to OFK Kablovi, after the local cable factory. In 1958 the city received its own stadium, the Jagodina City Stadium, which was built in the very south of the city, near the hill Đurđevo brdo, which offered 20,000 spectators at the time and was used by several Jagodina football clubs.

Finally it came on 14 October 1962 to a decisive merger of the clubs Morava, Jedinstvo and OFK Kablovi into one single club, today's FK Jagodina, which brought the end of a long era of name changes. Despite the turbulent history until then, the numerous name changes and the club fusion, the roots of the FK Jagodina are in 1919, the founding year of the JSK Zora, the very first football club in the city. Thus, even the FK Jagodina called officially 1919 as its founding year and is the successor of all of these clubs and continues their tradition.