.
.

HAJDUK - VELEZ 1986


That year Hajduk was weak. The club was somewhere in the relegation zone. At the time, the manager was Bulgarian Ivan Vucov. The group reflected the position of the club and rarely showed up at home games, but traveled more. I went, like always, to the games alone, because the guys from the streets were into other things. I was in the city for some time, drinking beer in front of the theatre. Then a lot of Velez fans started arriving, they literally occupied the city. On the way to Poljud stadium I came across two friends Samadan and one guy from the street next to mine. They were not into fights, they were more, just like normal supporters. On the way to the stadium there were no our fans, only those from Mostar. They started provoking. I remember one group of maybe 10 of them, going across the street looking shocked because there were no home fans, and then started singing something like "I want all Riva to know, ..... St. Duje". I got angry, I showed them middle finger, and they pretended as if they didn't see me. When I got to the stadium, there was already some incident. I saw our guys fighting with Velez fans. It was a rumble. At one moment I saw one Velez fan kicking in the head one of ours. He must have been a karate kid or something, because it was evident from his moves. Then I got in. This karate guy already started running away, and was hit by a rock. From our group there was Boka, Sit, Zika, Vukorepa, Jozo Grobar, Fritz, Leska... I didn't know the names of some of them, but there were more. Some Velez fans were still there, they were not affrayed. I kicked one of them to his chest, I only know that he received it in the middle of his chest. Boka had a rock in his hand and threw at the face of one older Velez fan. An that guy started crying: "What kind of people are you, you would kill a person with a rock?". Then more intense rock throwing began. There were more of then compared to us, I won't bullshit at all, but there were around 2 thousands of them, and only about 15 of us. They started pushing us towards the northern sector. Then Vukorep, Zuzla, Svraka (I forgot to mention those two) started going towards them while throwing rocks at them at the same time. I have to pay a respect to Vukorep because he started with it. What an assholes they were. Imagine when four guys are going towards two thousands of them, and they start taking steps back, moving away from us, and getting hit by rocks on their way. All 15 of us, maybe even a bit more, chased them away all the way to southern sector. They they would start running towards us, and we would do the same after some time. Once, two of them started going towards us, with those trolleys that are used for food distribution, and they stopped right in the middle of us. We started punching them. I hit one of them with my fist so hard, that my hand hurt for days to follow. I only could punch him once, because everyone else was doing it as well. The most furious were Dane from Sucidar and Boka. Then I yelled out: "It is enough!". I was really scared we would kill them. I don't know why they wanted to come to us, and why did they stop. Then the worst rock throwing started, one rock hit me in the leg, but I didn't want to show that I was hit, to make them happy. Near us one of theirs was sitting on the steps. It was evident that it was just some tired worker. He said something like "What will you do, come on hit me...". I didn't want to punch him, because he looked so weak, even dough I had a vision in my head of kicking him. But if I did that, he would fall back on the other side, and I don't think that he would survive that. Because of that Boka got into a contact with him, started yelling and swearing at him, punching him. So at this time this guy stands up and wants to punch Boka. Then Jozo Grobar comes in, grabs this guy by his neck, and yells at this guy not to touch his brother or he will kill him. At that time, the guy left. One more time we chased them down to southern sector. At one moment I didn't have any rocks left. Near me there was a huge rock that no one wanted to use because it was too big. But I took it at that time and I don't know how I managed to throw it that far, but it fell straight on Velez supporters. Shortly after that someone yelled out that the police was coming, and everyone started running. Jozo and I went towards the navy school. At one moment a stone went pass my head in the matter of centimeters and hit a car in front of me. Jozo and I started talking, that if the old group was there, this would not have happened. I must admit that those Velez supporters outnumbered us and sang provocative songs in our city. THAT MUST NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. At that game we sang and chanted good. The best part was when we all started the massive mosh pit as if we were on concert, back then we did it a couple of times on each game. There was one incident, someone started fighting with some guy that was near us. It all ended up pretty soon, as I found out later, the guy was from Hercegovina (Where Velez is from), but was a Hajduk fan. Fuck it, the accent got him in trouble at first. Then some more troubles at the other side of our northern sector, one Velez fan with beard was bashed. That guy from the fear jumped over the fence and straight on the pitch. I don't know how he managed that. That time there were almost 10000 Velez supporters, they came back next year, but not in that number. Later on their buses and cars were vandalized and broken and they were not that brave.

By: Toso
.
.