The legal principle audiatur et altera pars (let the other side be heard) should also apply to journalism. The sources that can be found a century after the creation and operation of Zora, the forerunner of Buducnost, if we exclude match reports, are limited to only one side: the oppressed side. The evidence is that the work was done under constant surveillance and pressure from the authorities, whether softer, more refined, or more brutal. After all, the story of workers' sports associations from all parts of the common state was similar.
“Matches between communist-controlled clubs and regime football teams took on a completely political character... Many matches were turned into demonstrations against the authorities,” he wrote. B. Jovanovic for Borba, the text entitled "On the playground - two companies of soldiers: The work of communists in pre-war sports clubs in Montenegro".
It happened that meetings of the Zora management, held (semi-)conspiratorially in the tavern of a communist sympathizer, Gruja Mandić, dispersed, and members of the leadership were detained, interrogated and mistreated by the police.
“They asked them the same questions and demanded that they admit that they were communists hiding behind that club Zora. They play football and agitate for communism. They blaspheme the state, the king and God,” writes the FK Budućnost Review in 1980, “Sketches for the Budućnost monograph: Workers' Sports Association Zora”.
At the same time, the authorities did not make much effort to obscure and justify their actions with legal regulations. An example is the ban on a party - a potential source of valuable income - that Zora planned to hold on January 12, 1928.
"Comrade athletes called the police to attend the party and monitor the content of the program, but that didn't help either. This kind of action by the police can only happen in Montenegro, to forbid the working class from meeting even for a simple dance and entertainment that has nothing to do with politics," wrote Radni narod.
The pressures strengthened the solidarity among the workers and the will not to give up. Over time, Zora gained a loyal fan base.
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Radni narod, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Montenegro, in June 1927 wrote about the “workers' institutions”, the Cultural and Educational Society Abrašević and the Workers' Sports Society Zora, which were progressing day by day.
"This rapid progress is due to the current management and the player members, who, even after tiring work, constantly go to training, carrying the dirty air from the workshops where they worked all day to get some fresh air. Comrades: let's help and build our institutions in every way possible."
It is not surprising because most of the friendly matches, at least those that are documented, were played by Zora with neighboring ideologically related clubs: Lovćen, Hajduk (Nikšić), Sloga (Danilovgrad).
The authorities were particularly concerned by those with Hajduk, founded, symbolically, on May 1, 1927.
So on August 30, 1928, the people of Nikšić visited Zora, which was their first away game since the club's existence. Knowing the political background, the Podgorica district mayor forbade the match between the two “red teams” to be played at the city stadium, where Balšić welcomed the rivals. From the clubs' perspective, there was no question of not holding the match. The hosts managed: the match was organized on Ćemovsko polje, by marking the field and placing goalposts on it. In order to cheer up the citizens of Podgorica, the players walked through the town in their jerseys, accompanied by bleh music, singing workers' songs.
A week later, Zora returned the visit to Hajduk. According to Milan Raičević, there was a tense atmosphere in Nikšić.
The match began with chants of "Forward, Red", and a group of workers from both cities sang "Even a machine that is powered by steam will not run without workers."
In the middle of the first half, the district chief and a group of gendarmes entered the field.
"Thus began the bayonet hunt for the bare-armed players and the audience that defended them. The prison cells under the Rampart were full," wrote MA Raičević in his book "Lijeva obala", published in 1971.
The Belgrade newspaper Politika also wrote about this event, written by a Nikšić journalist. Gavrilo Samardžić.
"The police [have], without any motivation, banned the match in Nikšić between Zora from Podgorica and Hajduk from Nikšić. This really doesn't happen anywhere else but here. In every way, the Ministry of Internal Affairs should also be interested in the reasons, and examine what higher state need there is for athletes not to play matches and engage in sports."
Not much water will flow through the Morača and Bistrica rivers, and the ban will be complete.
(From the monograph “Proud Past, One Future”, which will be on sale soon)
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