THE BEGININGS OF SOCIALIST SPORT IN LESKOVAC

Abstract

For socialist Yugoslavia sport was one of the pillars of socialist ideology. A new human, socialist human, must have been a physically harmonically developed and for that purpose sport was recognized as аn integral part of education. The idea was that socialist sport must be mass, ever present and universal. Furthermore, sport was used as an instrument of the ruling communist party for reaching the broader population and gaining more supporters. Not all of the population of Yugoslavia embraced new regime in 1945 so sport was recognized by Josip Broz Tito himself as an instrument for reaching the youth. In that sense, socialist Yugoslav identity was the pillar of new sport and in the heterogenic and war torn state was a tool for integration of different nationalities and entities. Yet, in reality through football there were many excesses of hooligans that were undermining the very core of ideology of Yugoslavia. Biggest conflict among football fans was in 1949 when two matches were held between clubs Kosta Stamenković from Leskovac and Radnički from Kragujevac. First mach was held in Leskovac where violence out broke in which took part not only football fans but also police and sport officials from Leskovac. Second mach was held in Kruševac in order to avoid conflicts but 800 fans from Leskovac came and brought havoc with them. Police had to react and many were arrested. All of this would not have had a profound impact on the government and the Party if the participants were hooligans or sympathizers of for e.g. Chetniks. On the contrary, among participants there were decorated partisans, local politicians and sport officials. Still, it wrong to conclude that the development of socialist sport in Leskovac was marked only by conflicts of fans. In the years 1945-1953 foundations of socialist sport were built, but Leskovac and the fans of Kosta Stamenković club stands out as ones that marked the biggest conflict in Yugoslav football in the first years of socialist Yugoslavia.