Bratislava ako futbalová periféria medzivojnového Československa – menej tradičný pohľad na česko-slovenské vzťahy

The author deals with the position of Bratislava football within the football scene of the First Czechoslovak Republic. Similarly to the political life of a centralized state, Bratislava held only a peripheral position in football. Several factors contributed to this fact. The most important were, firstly, the complex organizational structure of football in Czechoslovakia until the mid-1930s, dividing Bratislava’s Czechoslovak and Hungarian clubs into separate competitions. The second factor was the decision to introduce professionalism in Czechoslovak football in 1925. Unlike the leading clubs from the Czech lands, no club from Slovakia adopted professionalism. Consequently, even the most successful club in the city – ČsŠK Bratislava – failed to break into the Czechoslovak elite until the reorganization of competitions in the mid-1930s. Based on the analysis of Slovak journalistic contributions dedicated to Bratislava‘s interwar football, the author points to the resistance of Bratislava‘s football officials and journalists to the peripheral football position. This peripheral position was confirmed not only by criticism of the alleged neglect of their demands by the governing football authorities but also subjectively by constant appeals to Bratislava players to perform well in friendly matches against Prague teams. At the same time, the author highlights that the perception of Bratislava as a football periphery did not significantly change even after the long-awaited reorganization of the republic’s competitions in the mid-1930s and the promotion of the most successful Bratislava club into the newly established nationwide league open to both professional and amateur clubs from all national associations.