In the beginning it was a ball. The people of Podgorica first saw a football ball when it was brought to them in 1909 by the Englishman Alexin Milner, a representative of the British trading company "Hammer and Thompson".
The seeds sown were not taken seriously. Although there are reports of an improvised field not far from today's Budućnost stadium, on the site of the Health Insurance Fund building, there are no written records from that time that football was actively played in Podgorica in the pre-war period. But it was - during the war. Milan A. Raičević, a communist activist, player and member of the leadership of the Dawn of the Future, testified that during the occupation of Montenegro (1916-1918) in World War I, Austrian soldiers entertained themselves with football, in the meadows not far from today's Independence Square.
“In a large parking lot of freight cars with iron wheels and chains for towing, it was precisely at that place that the first ball game was played in Podgorica. Austrian soldiers played in a circle and competed to see who could hit the ball further and higher. We boys who could touch the ball were happy.”
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The authenticity of the testimony is also confirmed by the fact that the oldest documentary record of football playing in Podgorica dates back to the period of World War I. During the ambitiously conceived and implemented celebration of Charles Week (the last week before Easter), organized by the Austro-Hungarian Military General Administration, on May 28, 1918, a match was held in the area near the military barracks between the teams of Podgorica, “under the leadership of Lieutenant Naday”, and Cetinje, “under the leadership of the civilian commissar 'Stare'”. A report in the occupation newspaper Cetinjer Zeitung, or its Montenegrin version “Cetinjske novine”, described that during the first half of the match, in stormy conditions, the home team was better, scoring two goals. “In the second half, the Cetinje team tried to make up for the defeat with excellent, coordinated play, and gave the Podgorica goalkeeper a lot of work.” In the end, the home team won - 2:1.
"The municipality enthusiastically acclaimed the Cetinje team for their excellent combined and brilliant team play, and the Podgorica team for their agility and the excellent play of individual players," the text concludes.
From what is written, it cannot be reliably determined whether the soldiers from units stationed in Podgorica and Cetinje, or perhaps the residents of these two cities, were involved.
If we know that Cetinjske novine itself wrote in 1917 that local young men had also become interested in football in the Montenegrin capital, it is not ruled out that these were combined teams.
Incidentally, Raičević also left information that after the war, in Podgorica, “the first sports equipment was purchased by the merchant Jovo Šestić”. It was a small step before the beginning of organized football in the city. Who took it? Only one local club boasted a number in its full name - the First Podgorica Civic Club Balšić. Some researchers and chroniclers of local sports, such as Husein Cena Tuzovic, a journalist, publicist and author of the only monograph on FK Budućnost to date, state that Balšić began his work in 1919, at the initiative of "intellectuals, officers and clerks in the municipal administration and financial department."
Fragments of the historian's autobiographical writing also point to this. dr Andrija Lainović, one of the founders and godfather of the new club.
"Back then we played with a ball made of rags on a field at the foot of the Ljubović hill. I was one of the founders of Balšić, a sports ball club. And I gave it a name, linking it to the name of our medieval dynasty that ruled these parts, because even then I stood out among my comrades in my knowledge of history. When the club grew stronger, I was its secretary for a while. The president was a professor at the Gymnasium Mihailo Delibasic".
(From the monograph “Proud Past, One Future”, which will be on sale soon)
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