Four Croatian handball national team members were welcomed yesterday in the city where they started their sports careers – in Ljubuški.
Matej Mandić, David Mandić, Ivan Pavlović and Diano Neris Ceško they arrived in a Herzegovinian town of 5,000 inhabitants, where their sports story began. Since Croats follow handball players the most at European and world competitions, many have no idea that Ljubuški is home to one of the most trophy-winning handball clubs in the region, writes Marina Rados for Dalmatia Today.
RK Izviđač is a symbol of Ljubuški, the stands are regularly full
It is no coincidence that the four national team members are from the same town with a population of 5,000. Ljubuški is one of the symbols of handball in BiH, and the handball club there Scout is to Ljubušac what Hajduk is to Split. The stands at Scout matches are regularly full, and handball is watched in Ljubuški even when there are no world or European championships.
Handball in Ljubuški began to develop further in 1956 when he is a physical education teacher Ivica Bota gathered a group of schoolgirls on the playground next to today’s Marko Marulić Elementary School and started the first handball section. Soon, local school sports initiatives were united in ORK Ljubuškiand the club got its name at the end of 1967 scout, which he still wears today. During the decade Izviđač grew from a local sports story into a regionally recognizable club, with the strong support of the community that accepted handball as part of its own identity.
Construction brought a special momentum Center of small sportswhile the placement of the men’s team in the United Republic League at the end of the eighties further strengthened the status of Ljubuški as a handball center, which is why fans even traveled to the surrounding towns to cheer on their team.
Ljubuški welcomed the bronze handball players
The club with the most trophies in BiH
After a two-year war lull, the club returned to competitions under its name in April 1994 HRK Scoutwhere it is particularly significant that he did not resort to the then frequent renaming of sports teams, but kept the identity he has been building since 1967.
In the years that followed, Izviđač quickly rose through the league systems, already in 1998 he played for the champion of Bosnia and Herzegovina and stepped onto the international scene, and the first big trophies arrived soon – the BiH Cup in the 1998/99 season. and the championship title a year later.
New successes, European performances and the semi-finals of the Cup Winners’ Cup in 2005 confirmed the status of a club that grew together with its environment. With the investment of sponsors and continuous professional work that created a recognizable handball school and a number of top players, Izviđač grew beyond the local framework and became one of the most important handball collectives in the region. A journalist writes about all this Dusan Musa in Ljubuški glasnik.
Musa states that the post-war rise of Scouts was not only the result of sports enthusiasm, but also serious financial investments and systematic professional work. With the support of the municipality of Ljubuški, a key role in the growth of the former provincial club into a respectable sports collective was played by private kindergartens, whose investments in the late nineties and the beginning of the new millennium stabilized the club and strengthened its position on the regional handball map.
Čolina on the Boy Scout phenomenon: The culture of renunciation is embedded in the identity of our city
The financial support was accompanied by the high-quality work of the profession, so the engagements of coaches are like Josip Glavaš and Boris Jarek helped shape the senior team and develop a recognizable handball school that produced many top players.
Although between 2005 and 2016 the club went through a period of weaker financial support and without the biggest trophies, it was then that the youth base was additionally strengthened, confirming The scout as a nursery of talentswhile the arrival of the new general sponsor Central osiguranje opened up space for a more stable and ambitious future.
Severina was canceled because of the match
When he was in Ljubuški last November the concert of Severina Vučković was cancelledthe organizer stated that there will be no concert due to “new circumstances and the coincidence of the date of the concert with the international meeting of RK Izviđač Ljubuški”.
At the time, it seemed to many as a pointless apology by the organizer or the singer, but considering the status that Scout has in Ljubuški, it is not difficult to assume that even Severina is being canceled because of the club, writes Dalmacija Danas.
All of the above confirms the continuity of success that Scout has been building for decades. The club is even won the championship of Herceg-Bosna eight timeswhile he lifted the Cup nine times, and additionally confirmed his dominance at the national level.
Scout is today eleven-time champion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with titles won in the seasons 1999/2000, 2001/2002, 2003/2004, 2004/2005, 2015/2016, 2017/2018, 2018/2019, 2020/2021, 2022/2023, 2023/2024. and 2024/2025, along with four BiH Cup winners’ trophies from the seasons 1998/1999, 2001/2002, 2021/2022. and 2024/2025. year.
Such a series of trophies clearly shows that Izviđač has long since outgrown its local boundaries and profiled itself as one of the most trophy-winning and stable handball clubs in the entire region.
(www.jabuka.tv | Photo: Denis Kapetanović/Pixsell)
