Early days and
Gradjanski vs
Sparta matches in May 1918 HAŠK was founded as a
multi-sports club in November 1903 by nine Zagreb students (August Adam, Dragutin Albrecht, Petar Čerlek, Vjekoslav Jurković, Marko Kostrenčić, Krešimir Miskić, Oskar Mohr, Lav Wodwarška and Hinko Würth) who are today seen as pioneers of organized sports at the
University of Zagreb. The club's purpose was to popularize sports among Croatian students, as well as to counter the ongoing
magyarization of Croatian public life, since Croatia was at the time part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. The club's colours were red, white and golden, chosen to represent the colours of Croatian provinces. At first, the club had sections for
fencing,
ice-skating,
skiing,
sledding and
sports shooting, but ever since
football was introduced in the spring of 1904, it became the most popular and well-known department of the club. The club played its first official game on 16 October 1906 against PNIŠK Zagreb (
Prvi nogometni i športski klub Zagreb,
First football and sports club Zagreb) which ended in a 1–1 draw in front of 800 spectators. The club played many non-league games against local sides and against foreign opponents in the following years, such as the game against BEAC (the
University of Budapest sports club) in 1909. When the
first Croatian football championship was started in 1912, HAŠK were heading the table in mid-season and were later declared champions as the competition was abandoned after the winter break due to poor organization. The championship was never relaunched, and during
World War I the club went on hiatus.
Revival and demise In the period from 1918 to 1945 the club grew in popularity and membership, and in the years following the war new sections for
track and field athletics,
tennis,
swimming,
field hockey,
cycling,
table tennis, and
motorsport were formed. After experiencing a financial crisis in the 1920s and a fire that destroyed stands on their ground in the summer of 1936, the following decade saw immediate revival and the time of HAŠK's greatest success. The first success came in 1923 when they won the first edition of the
Yugoslav Cup, named back then as the King Alexander Cup. The club will regularly compete in the
Yugoslav First League since 1927, and their finest hour came in the
1937–38 season when they won the Yugoslav title. They even went on to compete in the 1938
Mitropa Cup, when they were knocked out in the first round of the tournament by the
Czechoslovak side
SK Kladno with 5:2 on aggregate. On a local level, in the period from 1911 to 1945 the club played a total of 120 matches against city rivals
Građanski. Their last game was a 2–2 draw on 10 April 1945, just before both clubs were disbanded by the communist government. The newly formed
Dinamo Zagreb, which was established by the authorities two months later, took over HAŠK's
Maksimir ground (originally opened in May 1912), along with many players who switched from Građanski or HAŠK to Dinamo. Other sports sections of the club were renamed
FD Akademičar (Academic Sports Society) and later merged with
ASD Mladost (Youth Academic Sports Society) which survives today as the
HAŠK Mladost sports society, most famous for their later
water polo and
volleyball success on both the national and continental levels. The football section of Mladost operated until January 1955. The most prominent of HAŠK's football players who later joined Dinamo was
Zlatko Čajkovski, who spent the next 11 seasons playing for Zagreb's powerhouse. Dinamo's current youth academy and training ground located next to their stadium both bear the name
Hitrec-Kacian, in honour of two HAŠK players,
Ico Hitrec and
Ratko Kacian.
Post-Yugoslavia After the fall of communism and in the midst of the
breakup of Yugoslavia, the club was reactivated and officially registered in November 1990 by prominent former HAŠK members who had been active as athletes or officials before the forced dissolution of the club took part in these efforts. Initially, no sports activities were launched, as the new club leadership focused on promoting HAŠK’s legacy and organizing events aimed at raising public awareness of HAŠK’s contribution to the development of sports in Croatia. In an attempt to revive their glory days, the newly restarted club decided to enter competition sports again in 1993 so they merged with a local amateur football side called
NK TPK from the
Peščenica neighbourhood of Zagreb. In 2006 they merged again with the
Druga HNL side
NK Naftaš Ivanić from
Ivanić Grad to form the present-day
NK HAŠK 1903 Zagreb, currently a
second tier club in the Croatian football league system. They play their games at the
Donje Svetice ground in Zagreb, which has a capacity of 3,000. After the breakup of
Yugoslavia and the re-establishment of HAŠK, there were attempts by the political authorities to attribute the histories of the football clubs
Građanski and HAŠK to
Dinamo. To that end, Dinamo briefly changed its name to HAŠK Građanski. Following a series of conflicts, the newly formed HAŠK was officially recognized as the successor of the football section of the original HAŠK, while HAŠK Građanski (Dinamo) changed its name to Croatia Zagreb, before reverting back to Dinamo in February 2000. On April 12, 2011,
NK Dinamo Zagreb further adjusted its name to Građanski nogometni klub Dinamo Zagreb, aiming to emphasize its connection to
Građanski. == The football section ==