NK Lošinj

"Studenti" football club around the year 1929.

The beginnings of football on the island of Lošinj stretch back to the Austro-Hungarian era, when the town was an important port of the Austrian Litoral in contact with the rest of the world, so football arrived on Lošinj much earlier than in the rest of nowadays Croatia. The first sport clubs were launched before the First World War, but weak connections hindered the development of the local clubs.[1] Between the two world wars there were two city clubs that played their matches in the Baia d'Argento (today's Srebrna Uvala): the Studenti, where students of the prestigious Maritime School (Istituto Nautico Nazario Sauro) played, and the Dopolavoro, a football club of the local workers associations. The Neresine football club and Ossero were also active in the municipality.

After 1945, all existing sport clubs in Yugoslavia were closed by a decree of the authorities from Belgrade, and broad sports associations were created instead. However, since Lošinj was still in the occupation zone B under the military administration of the Yugoslav Army at the time and Yugoslav law did not apply, the existing clubs were not dissolved, but local players simply continued to play in clubs with new names. First at the end of the war, the autoctonous population created teams named after the local neighborhoods: Squero, Prico, Lussinpiccolo, Lussingrande. Then the government officially gave way to new sports clubs in which the players of the previous Italian clubs continued to play: at first Omladina, Radnici and Mar-Bar, and later Jadran and Brodograditelj. Also the JNA Garrison Club played in town. In accordance with the new communist sport regulations, in autumn of 1952, Brodograditelj and Jadran united into the Sportsko Društvo Lošinj, who were to represent the whole town in future competitions. In 1962, the first and only championship of the Kvarner islands was played, which was won by SK Lošinj, and it is remembered as the greatest success in the history of the club. Since 1963, famous clubs have often spent the winter on Lošinj in search of good training conditions, and the most frequent guests are NK Rijeka and Zagreb's Dinamo.

The modern NK Lošinj was created on the foundations of SD Lošinj in 1976.[2] At that time, P. Stojanović was elected president, and the coach-player became Petar Fekter. The club competed in the regional league for 5 years, and then in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar zone league. After 1991, the club competed in I. or II. county league. The most famous football player from Lošinj of all time was Tullio Duimovich, who played for Grion from Pula, from where he moved to Fiorentina. From 1978 to 1985, Lošinj hosted a group of the Kvarnerska Riviera, and in 1980 the finalists of the Croatian Youth Cup.

In the beginning and in particular during the Italian Kingdom times, Lošinj clubs played on the playground of the same name near Srebrna Uvala. A new modern playground was built in 1953, and on January 20, 1974, today's playground was opened at the Čikat campsite.