Eighteen years after the founding of the oldest club in this area, Montenegrin football came of age and became independent.
On March 8, 1931, in the hall of the Dom slobode (Government House) in Cetinje - not far from Jasik at the foot of Orlov krš, the meadows where Lovćen, born in 1913, played matches - and three months after receiving approval from the Yugoslav Football Association, the founding assembly of the Cetinje Football Sub-Association was held.
"With the establishment of the CNP, everyone gained a lot," reported Belgrade's Politika.
"Today marks a new era in football in Montenegro."
This finally fulfilled the wishes of Montenegrin clubs, who had been stuck on the periphery of the Split sub-federation for a decade: to be their own people, regulate and determine their own development, receive direct assistance from the Yugoslav Football Association, and have (easier) access to the federal league.
"This will certainly contribute greatly to improving the quality of football in Montenegro, making the matches even more interesting and attracting the attention of the audience."
"Because the Split sub-association did not take care of our clubs that diligently," he wrote in Slobodna misla. Djordje Keseljevic.
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He was elected the first president of the Cetinje Sub-Union. Nikola Latkovic, football referee, professor at the Cetinje Gymnasium and leader of Montenegrins. The board of directors consisted of 20 football workers from Cetinje, Podgorica, Nikšić, Tivat, Bar and Herceg Novi. A wide professional range: from the “bookstore owner” (Aleksandar Rhinewine), via the “cafe” (Jakov Kontic), “shoemaker” (Jakov Dozic), “driver” (Aco Cejovic), to “student” (Vojin Cerovic) and “owner and editor of the newspaper Zeta” (Jovan Vukcevic). Along with Vukčević, Podgorica gained another seat in the governing body: Budućnost was represented by Sergije StanićIn addition to the president, both vice presidents and both secretaries of the Sub-Union were from Cetinje.
"It is up to them to prove that we have truly earned the trust of the JNS Assembly, that we are mature and capable of taking care of ourselves, and that the progress of football is our common goal," Slobodna misla stated.
"If they don't stick to it, if they introduce club politics and disputes, if there is no management of the entire Podsavez, but only of the Cetinje clubs, the old story will repeat itself and what we got - nothing."
It will turn out that the text hit the mark.
Although it soon regulated its jurisdiction with a series of regulations and rules, and already organized the championship at the end of March 1931, a construction error occurred in the foundations of the Sub-Union.
After Latković, the next three presidents of the Cetinje Football Association (Aleksandar Rajnvajn, Srećko Jun and Niko Bokan) were from Cetinje - "their name gives them away", one might say. The last leader of the Montenegrin football forum was Baranin Đuro Čejović, one of the founders of Crnojević, and for a short time (from February to the end of August 1939) the Minister of Physical Education in the Government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
From the beginning, it was riven by frictions, conflicts and divisions, primarily club, geographical (Podgorica and Kotor, as strong regional centres, resisted the "arbitrariness" of Cetinje), political (on one side, workers' clubs, such as Lovćen, Budućnost, Hercegovac, on the other, civic clubs, Crnogorac and Balšić). The problem was complicated by the fact that the JNS did not pay much attention to the Sub-Union, isolating the Montenegrin clubs by not including them in federal competitions for a long time - and too long -. Only, not even two years had passed since its establishment, and in the CNP area everyone was playing their own game: the Podgorica teams asked for the headquarters to be moved to them, the Barani ones to return to the administration of Split, the Boka Kotorska clubs suspended contacts with Cetinje and played matches among themselves, and the Cetinje ones were fighting among themselves over the playing fields...
The CNP tried to alleviate the strong pressure by decentralization: in early October 1933, two parishes were formed - Zeta, with its center in Podgorica, and Bokokotorska, with its center in Kotor.
However, even that did not silence the critics, so in late 1934, Zeta appealed to the state Ministry of Physical Education to either dissolve the Sub-Union or appoint a commissioner. And then, as a "deus ex machina", the decision of the JNS Assembly on December 15, 1935, appeared that the champions of all sub-unions, including the Cetinje one, would enter the fight for the state title. For Budućnost, however, it came too late...
(From the monograph “Proud Past, One Future”, which will be on sale soon)
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