Segesta

Origins (1906-1918)

The most important information about the club and people who founded can be found on the occasion of the celebration of its 20th anniversary. That anniversary was marked from the 26th to the 29th of June 1927, when the first club ground was also inaugurated. The event was covered by the local weekly magazine "Hrvatske novine" and some of the original founders were interviewed. The story goes that the club was created in late June or early July 1906 by a group of school students: 13 year old Ivo Stipčić and about twenty of his friends gathered at Ivo's uncle Ivan Šešek's inn (today's Ivana Kukuljevića-Sakcinskog Street, number 4), and decided to found a football club. The founders agreed that the first president of the club would be the owner of the ball, Ivo Stipčić, and "Segesta" was chosen as the name of the club after the name of the old Celtic-Illyrian settlement in the area of Sisak — Segestika. Since the members of the club were mostly pupils and students who stayed in Sisak only during the summer school holidays, it was named Ferijalni športski klub Segesta Sisak (Holiday Sports Club "Segesta" Sisak).

The first written trace of "Segesta" can be found in the weekly "Novi Sisački Glas" from the 15th of August 1909, when Segesta played a match against Concordia Zagreb. In a 1912 edition of the weekly magazine "Sisak" featured a list of Sisak-based football clubs, and Segesta is said to exist only through holidays, and the following year the weekly "Posavac" says of Segesta that it was "the first club in Sisak" and that it "kept somewhat afloat and functioned". The Zagreb-based newspaper Šport mentions Segesta in 1919 as "the first Sisak-based club, the Holiday Sports Club Segesta". Thus the precise and real founding date is not sure, due to a lack of any documentation about the happening.

Interwar period and WWII (1918-1945)

The name Holiday Sports Club Segesta Sisak hung around until 1920, when at the annual club meeting on the 1st of August it was decided that the club will register in the Yugoslav football association as Športski klub Segesta Sisak (Sports Club Segesta Sisak). That decision was finalised on the 14th February 1921 and since then Segesta participated in every season of the Yugoslav Football Championship until 1941, and the Croatian Football League until 1944.

The club's first success came in their inaugural season in the YFA. They placed first in Sisak's local league, but lost to ŠK Krajišnik Banja Luka in the quarter-finals of the provincial playoffs. On the 1st of March 1925 the club changed its name for the second time to Građanski športski klub Segesta Sisak (Citizens' Sports Club Segesta Sisak) to gather the following of the citizens of Sisak. They reached the quarter-finals again in the 1926/27 season, but lost to ŠK Proleter Slavonski Brod.

The thirties was the most successful era of the club before WWII. That was the time that the club solidified itself as the biggest club in Sisak, in front of rivals Slavija and Viktorija, but also as the team to beat in the region, as they won three consecutive Provincial Championships of the Zagreb Football Association from 1930/31 to 1932/33, being the only team ever to do so. Being a provincial champion of the ZFA in those times meant Segesta was one of the better teams in Croatia and parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The quality of the team was ripe for a spot in the National League, but that dream never came to fruition. In September 1939 the club changed its name once again into Hrvatski građanski športski klub Segesta Sisak (Croatian Citizens' Sports Club Segesta Sisak) as Yugoslavia steered further into nationalism.

Post-war era (1945-1991)

With the establishment of the communist regime in Yugoslavia, Segesta, as all other sport clubs in the country gets dissolved by the communist authorities, only for Sport Club Naprijed to be established in its place. The club will play as Naprijed between 1946 and 1952, when it is renamed Segesta again and since then it plays in the lower leagues of the Yugoslav competitions. In the 1977/78 season, Segesta achieved great success by winning the title of Croatian champion-region north. With this success, she achieved the right to play in the finals of the Croatian Championship with the champion of the Croatian Football League - Region South, NK Solin. That match was automatically a qualification to enter the 2nd Federal Football League. The first match was played in Sisak on June 18, 1978. There were about eight thousand spectators at the "Bratstvo-jedinstvo" stadium, and Segesta won 2–0 with goals from Josip Cavrić. In the return match in Solin, the hosts won 1–0, which was enough for Segesti to celebrate the club's greatest success since World War II. In 1978, Segesta achieved another notable result, when the club won the title of Croatian amateur champion.

In independent Croatia (1991-1996)

On the 3rd of March 1992 a meeting of the board was held, where it was decided to change the club name to Hrvatski nogometni klub Segesta Sisak (Croatian Football Club Segesta Sisak). They started their time in the Croatian football federation with a season in the Druga HNL — North, Croatia's second division, finishing the season in 4th place. The following season the Prva HNL, Croatia's first divion was expanded to hold 16 teams, including Segesta.