NK GOSK - Dubrovnik

NK GOSK - Dubrovnik 1919 is a professional football club based in the city of Dubrovnik, Croatia. Its name comes from the Gruz neighbourhood of the city (Gruski Omladinski Sportski Klub, in English Gruz Youth Sports Club).

History

GOSK was founded in 1919 and spent four years in the 1. HNL.

In the 1979, the two former rivals GOSK and NK Jug were merged. The name of the new club was GOSK-Jug and it continued under that name until Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia. GOSK-Jug spent the entire 1980s in the Yugoslav Second League. Together with HNK Sibenik and RNK Split, the club frequently came close to promotion to the Yugoslav First League. This period is regarded as the club's strongest period in its history.

After the breakup of Yugoslavia the club once again merged with a local side, this time HNK Dubrovnik. The new institution competed in the first 1. HNL since Croatian independence. The year was a very strange one with the war still raging on. The club were unable to play their home games in Dubrovnik due to security threats, so played at a whole range of locations, including a famous match played at Korcula. It was very tough for the club to be competitive in these circumstances and lost their first nine games in the league. Luka Bonacic took over as manager and had many draws, many of them 0–0, with an ultra defensive style and doing so managed to lift the club of the bottom of the table and keep them in the first division.

The club managed to stay in the first division of Croatia for four years, but after relegation the club began to sink slowly into the mediocrity of the lower Croatian divisions.

Pero Vican founded a new club in 1998 under the old name GOSK. The old club disappeared due to financial difficulty while the new GOSK continued to rise through the ranks. The new club reached the second division of Croatian football in 2000 and remained there until 2005. GOSK finished second last in the 2. HNL season which meant they needed to play relegation pl