Croatian Sports Museum

The museum is thematically related to the history and development of sports and physical culture in Croatia. Systematic collection of material for the museum began in the 1950s, and in 1977 the first exhibition of the Museum of Physical Culture of Croatia was arranged in the building of the Faculty of Kinesiology, which functioned as an integral part of that faculty. In 1990, the museum changed its name to the Croatian Sports Museum, and was officially registered in 2003. In its collections, the Museum preserves the material of almost all sports branches from different periods, and the most numerous is the one about the beginnings of certain sports disciplines. The fundus consists of exercise equipment, vessels, vehicles, aircraft, etc .; sports equipment and props (footwear, clothing, skates, skis, balls, rackets, bats, shields, whistles); clothing, competition numbers, costumes, etc .; trophy items (medals, plaques, badges and trophies); printed matter (posters of sports events, leaflets, brochures, invitations, tickets, postcards, competition schedules); diplomas, flags, coats of arms… The photo collection has about 26,000 positives and thousands of negatives related to various clubs, athletes and sports staff, as well as sports events and facilities. The museum has a specialized archive with material from the field of exercise and sports, which contains original documents. The most valuable personal archival funds are those from the collections of Franjo Bučar (1866 – 1946) and Milivoj Radović (1916 – 1987). The Museum collects biographies of athletes and sports workers from the beginning of the development of sports in our country to the present day. For 2016, the Museum is preparing the opening of the permanent exhibition Sports in Croatia until 1920, in which the rich collection of the Museum collected in the past more than 60 years will be presented to the public for the first time. A variety of material from museum collections and libraries will thematically cover all parts of Croatia from Ilok to Dubrovnik and the period from Austro-Hungary through the First World War to the beginnings of the organization of sports in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The exhibition will include the following topics: exercise movement Croatian Falcon (1874 – 1929), physical education in schools, Franjo Bučar – the father of Croatian sports, Olympism, fencing, archery and ballooning, cycling, football, wrestling, athletics, motoring, tennis, field hockey, mountaineering and mountaineering, skiing and sledding, rowing and swimming. The establishment of clubs, associations and people responsible for their activities will be presented, as well as sports competitions and facilities.