Abbreviation RA81 Club FK Velež Mostar | Founded 1981 | |
Type Supporters' group, Ultras group Motto Mostar u srcu, Velež do groba (Mostar in heart, Velež to the grave) Location Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina | ||
Red Army is the name of the supporter group of Bosnian football club FK Velež Mostar.
Contents
History
Red Army was founded in 1981 in Mostar under the name Crveni Šejtani (Red Devils), after FK Velež Mostar won his first Yugoslav Cup final. The final game was won with a score of 3-2 against FK Željezničar in the Marakana stadium in front of more than 40,000 people. Following its inception, Crveni Šejtani fell into a period of decline, but resurfaced again in 1986, when FK Velež once again reached the final of the Yugoslav Cup versus Dinamo Zagreb.
The game was won by Velež with a final score of 3-1. After that game, Crveni Šejtani were renamed to Red Army. During that period, subgroups formed, including the Zealots, Eagles, Chicago, Furia and Carina. One group of FK Velež fans in Sarajevo was called Red Platon.
During the Yugoslavia period, FK Velež was considered the pride of Herzegovina and supported by many Herzegovinians. The fan base spanned Yugoslavia, with the most support coming from Konjic, Čapljina, Travnik, Doboj, Tuzla and Dubrovnik.
During the 1985-86 season, Mostar was a town of 100,000 people. However, eight-thousand Red Army members traveled to Split to watch a Velež-Hajduk match. This is just one of the many examples of the love that Red Army had for Velež. Velež was viewed as a multi-ethnic team. Many Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs played in FJ Velež.
With the collapse of Yugoslavia, Velež collapsed as well. Today, members of Red Army are mostly Bosniaks. A few Serbians and Croatians are still involved. While Bosnians are a majority, the group accept all nationalities. Attendance at the stadium rarely reached levels seen in the 1980s, but during certain occasions large amounts of fans still gather.
Present day
Today, Red Army Mostar is mostly composed of people from Mostar. A few groups come from Konjic and Jablanica.
Red Army's biggest rivals today are Ultras Zrinjski, a supporter group of another team from Mostar HŠK Zrinjski Mostar. The rivalry is based both on locality and ethnicity. FK Velež and Red Army are predominantly Bosniaks, while Zrinjski and Ultras are Croats. The rivalry began after the end of the Bosnian war, mostly because of conflict between Bosniaks and Croats during war.
The city of Mostar was divided between the east side which is predominantly Bosniak and the west side which is predominantly Croat. Because of that, Velež's old stadium, Bijeli Brijeg Stadium was in west side and today he belongs to Zrinjski. Matches between Velež and Zrinjski are often afflicted with high levels of conflict.