It took us two days to come up with an opening sentence for this interview. Not because we don’t know how to start the article, but because we need to give a brief description of the person we are interviewing at the very beginning. We can’t possibly do that with Slavišа Milenkovic, who left so much to rugby, that it almost leaves us speechless. A man who, above all, has been involved in the work of RK Kruševac for 30 years. A man who collected data for years and participated in writing two monographs, where you can find the results of all national competitions as well as the results of national teams. During all these years he was a coach, national team coach, team manager, match commessaire, referee, development officer, he performed countless jobs in the interest of rugby.
It seemed to him that it was not enough that he does everything in rugby, so he started contacting the diaspora regarding players who would play for the Serbian national team. Almost all players who played for the national team from abroad were contacted by Slavisa. A great fan not only of rugby but of sports in general. He is fanatical about rugby, because only a fanatic can do so much work and last so long. We are very honored and pleased that he agreed to give us an interview, we hope you enjoy his rugby story as much as we did.
Rugby.rs: When did you start playing rugby? How did you find out about rugby?
S. Milenković: The first rugby match I watched on TV was the final of the Yugoslav Championship Zagreb – Dinamo. I think it was 1976. , so when I was 9 years old. By the way, I followed all sports from the age of six, but I always had a tendency towards somewhat, for our times, exotic sports such as ice hockey, field hockey, rugby… From that first game, I regularly followed rugby through newspaper reports. and rare TV broadcasts and contributions, and I actively started playing it in February 1983. , when the Rugby section “7. July” began enrolling boys from the city. Before that, for a few months, she gathered exclusively the cadets of the ABHO center in Kruševac. Before rugby, I played handball and basketball, in the younger selections of Napredek. I played my first rugby match after a month and a half of training, against Students in Nis. I was 15 and a half years old and I was playing against seniors.
Rugby.rs: What was your position while you were actively playing?
S. Milenković: At the age of 16, I was 1.91cm and barely 80 kilograms. However, I play at Number 8 and lock position. One game for “7. July” I played as an flyhalf. Later, I moved to the BRK U18s team, and played there as a prop (!!!) and lock.
Rugby.rs: What is your favorite memory from your playing days?
S. Milenković: Certainly winning the title of U18s champion of SFR Yugoslavia with BRK in 1986. . It was a great generation that included the Štiglić brothers, Boža Jelić, Đerić, Milošević, Aca Kostić, Milan Milić and others. I was the oldest in the generation and at the final tournament in Ljubljana we beat Rudar from Zenica, Nada from Split, Bežigrad and Lokomotiva. After that tournament, I went to army, and the other guys continued to dominate the U18s competition for a few more seasons.
Rugby.rs: Tell us more about the history of rugby in Kruševac. Since the establishment of the club “7. July” until today?
S. Milenković: Rugby section in barracks “7. July” was founded by Dragan Vujasinović. He was on duty as a professor of physical chemistry at the ABHO Center. That was in October 1982. and a few months later, in February 1983. , boys from the city also started coming. The first two games, April 1983. , we played in trainers because we didn’t have jerseys. We played the next four games in black jerseys, for football referees. Everyone bought their own jersey. That first year, we paid all the expenses ourselves – travel, equipment, referees… Vujke had previously played rugby in Partizan, in the generation with Medic, Jerinic, Babic, Goran Stoiljković. He was a great player, a winger. Unfortunately, despite the good conditions in the barracks, the club did not develop its potential even when Vujke returned to Belgrade in 1986. , the club lived only a few more months
In 1987, I returned from the army, but the set of younger players had already dispersed and it was difficult to start anything. We did it at the worst possible time, the 19th. August 1992 , at a time of fuel shortages and everything else, while the war was raging around. In the first couple of months, we didn’t manage to play a single game. We had no equipment. The only ball we had was “Sportova” which I bought a couple of years before. In 1993. we joined the competition with U16s. We built the club step by step. We were never the darlings of the city. In the first eight years, we received a total of 400 German marks from the city! We survived with the help of Trial Corporation, where our player Jovica Milanović had good contacts.
Rugby.rs: This year RK Kruševac celebrates its 30th anniversary. the club’s birthday. You are one of the key people who have been there during all these years. How much work and sacrifice is needed to maintain a club outside of Belgrade?
S. Milenković: A lot. I calculated that during these 30 years I attended at least 2,500 training sessions. If we add to that travel, administration, arranging equipment, organizing matches and tournaments, that’s an incredible amount of time dedicated to rugby. I missed a lot of personal commitments because of rugby, but it was always my choice and I chose to serve rugby.
There was never enough money, so a couple of times I paid for the players’ bus tickets to go to the game. Due to severe problems, there were a lot of oscillations in work, discontinuities in the competition, but Kruševac was always a team that “produced” quality players. Cups and results were never important to us, but the individual development of the players.
Rugby.rs: You were the national team coach of several national teams. What moment do you have the most fond memories of?
S. Milenković: Uff. As a national team coach, I went through the whole scale of emotions, from total disappointment, taking pills and trauma to great joy. I led the men’s U19s national team in only one competition, the World Championship of Group D in Switzerland. It was a very emotional competition because we played at a time when the bombing of our country started. The boys were great and we ended the competition with two wins and a loss against Tunisia. I am very attached to that generation of players because they were truly outstanding. Many of them are still active players even though they are over 40 years old.
I worked with the girls for six years, four plus two. I remember most fondly the second participation in the European Championship in a week, in Zenica in 2008. . That year we won three games and the girls played really well.
Rugby.rs: As the manager of the national team, you researched the players of our roots abroad who meet the conditions to play for Serbia. How exciting was it to make rugby contacts around the world?
S. Milenković: It was very interesting, although the Serbian rugby diaspora is not as numerous and powerful as some others. I contacted a lot of players. Some, unfortunately, could not respond due to professional obligations or contracts they have with clubs. That’s why I focused on quality amateurs. Marko Gvozdenović, Tom Cvijanović, Žilijen Matijašević, Bojan Čečarić, Boško Jovanović, Kaspar Strugar and others raised the quality of our national team, but, perhaps more importantly, they are all good people. It is a great pity that we could not hire extremely high-quality players from Australia like David Rakić and Tom Milošević. I think that not enough has been done to strengthen contact with the diaspora and that should be one of the tasks in the future.
Rugby.rs: You were one of the authors of the monograph “Yugoslavian Rugby – The Story of the Forgotten Union”, how interesting was it for you to collect data and work on that project?
S. Milenković: I have been collecting information about the history of rugby for years. My first book was published in 2014. . Marko Protega, the last coach of the national team of SFR Yugoslavia and I, have published the monograph “The Story of the Forgotten Union”, which deals, above all, with the senior and youth national team of the SFRJ. After that I focused on the period of the First World War and after it and the activities of Serbian students in Great Britain and France. It was a great journey through time that is still going on. After the publication of the monograph in 2018. I learned a lot of interesting data that shed a completely new light on the development of rugby in Serbia. I still, when I have time, “dig” through digital archives, contact historians and archivists.
Rugby.rs: As part of the celebration of 100 years of rugby in Serbia, you are the author of the monograph “That’s how Serbian eagles flew”, which can be the envy of even the most popular sports in Serbia. How challenging was it for you to consolidate all the collected material?
S. Milenković: The biggest problem was the short deadlines. The entire monograph was “packaged” in literally six months, and there was a lot of work Such monographs are prepared for two or three years and are done by teams of people. I had a lot of material from before, but it was necessary to travel five or six times to Belgrade and Pancevo, conduct interviews with former players, collect and systematize photos, secure copyrights. The problem was also the disorganized archive of the Union, because a lot of it was taken away in previous years. I wish I had time to let the collected material “age” for one or two months and then do the final version. I am very self-critical as a person and I usually look at what is not good, but I think that this monograph, taking into account all factors, is something that both the Rugby Union of Serbia and I can be proud of.
Rugby.rs: Let’s go back to RK Kruševac, you currently have a lot of quality players in the youth team who are slowly starting to prove themselves in the senior competition. What is their range in your opinion?
S. Milenković: It’s hard to say. I have to admit that after almost 40 years in rugby and 30 years as a coach, I understand young players less and less. I feel they lack more passion, energy and commitment to rugby. In order to progress, it is necessary to have a goal that is defined primarily through performance. The best players I coached had it all. We will see what this generation can do. They have better conditions than previous generations, they play more games, so everything is on them.
Rugby.rs: What are your hobbies and interests outside of rugby?
S. Milenković: Rugby and sports are my great love and I have never treated them as a hobby. They are often intertwined with the journalistic work that ensures my existence. Sometimes I neglect work to devote myself to rugby. By the way, as I said before, I love all sports and follow them regularly. While I was working as a TV commentator on local television stations, at the end of the 90s, I think I did some 14, 15 sports, from athletics to football, water polo, hockey and boxing
I like to read. In recent years, I have been most interested in historical literature.
Rugby.rs: What would you say to young players in Serbia?
S. Milenković: Rugby is more than just a game. It is a kind of philosophical direction and a way of life. In order to understand rugby, one must love it unconditionally and passionately, like a wife and a lover together. What we get from rugby is not material but it is immensely valuable. So never ask what rugby has done for you but what you can do for rugby.
