SK Ilirija (1911–1941) At the beginning of the 20th century, football came to
Ljubljana from
Vienna and was played mostly by the students. Football club Ilirija was founded on 9 June 1911 in a pub called Roža on Židovska cesta in Ljubljana. Albin Kandare was elected as the first president of Ilirija, and their first ground was at
Tivoli Park. Ilirija's first match was played on 30 July 1911, and ended in an 18–0 defeat against Hermes, the local students' club which had been founded in 1910. SK Ljubljana operated until 1941 and the outbreak of
World War II, when all sports activities in Ljubljana were suspended.
NK Ilirija (1950–1991) After World War II, the club was re-established in 1950 with the help of some pre-war former players. They were now located on the outskirts of Ljubljana in
Zgornja Šiška, where they built their stadium in 1963. They played mostly in the
Slovenian Republic League, the third-tier of Yugoslav football. Their biggest success was finishing as runners-up in 1972. The team, consisting of Jerebic, Rojina, Šmon, Erjavec, Kolenc, Dermastija, Godler, Ahlin, Filip, Jalšavec, Jesenšek, Daneu and Prelovšek, therefore competed for the Yugoslav amateur championship that year, but lost in the final to
Vrbas. In 1986, Ilirija was relegated from the Republic League and continued to play in local regional leagues until the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Since 1991 After Slovenia's independence in 1991, Ilirija played a couple of seasons in the newly established
Slovenian Second League. In the
1992–93 season, they finished 15th and were subsequently relegated to the
Slovenian Third League. Since then, Ilirja competed in leagues outside of the top two divisions until 2017, when they returned to the Slovenian Second League. ==Colours and crest==