Well that was a bit of a struggle, but England stood firm. A 1-0 win at Wembley, such fun, in front of a decent crowd.
The Croatian Sports Federation (Hrvatski športski savez= HNS), was founded on 8 October 1909 in Zagreb, at the time when Croatia was part of Austria-Hungary. The present-day Football Federation considers its foundation date to be 13 June 1912.....happy anniversary!
After WW1 and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, representatives from various football clubs met in Zagreb on 14 April 1919 and founded the Yugoslavian FA (Jugoslavenski nogometni savez), as a successor of the Croatian Sports Federation's football section.
In 1929, following disagreements between the Zagreb and Belgrade sub-federations, the Football Association of Yugoslavia was dissolved. It was then re-established in May 1930 in Belgrade, this time with the Serbian-language name Fudbalski savez Jugoslavije. The Belgrade-based association then continued organizing the national league until 1939. The Croatian Football Federation was established as a football governing body in the newly created province and Croatian and Slovenian clubs soon began leaving the Yugoslav League to join the CFF-run "Croatian-Slovenian Football League" in protest of the alleged centralization of sports around Belgrade. The split was eventually rectified with the promise of an increase in the number of Croatian and Slovenian clubs in the league, and because of this, a shortened ten-round league was played in the 1939-40 Yugoslav First League season. In 1940 CFF also played a part in organizing the first ever Croatia national football team matches which played four international friendlies between April and December 1940. However the federation was not yet recognized by FIFA as Croatia was at the time still a province of Yugoslavia.
In April 1941 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded and was effectively dissolved. However, the Croatian Football Federation continued to run a competition called the Croatian national football league in the territory of Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a fascist puppet state which enjoyed relative peace during World War II, and which included most of present-day countries of Croatia and Bosnia-Herz. On 17 July 1941 CFF was admitted to FIFA as the top level federation of NDH, and the national team representing NDH played several international matches between 1941 to 1944. At the end of World War 2, Croatia became a part of SFR Yugoslavia and the Belgrade-based FA of Yugoslavia took over as the main football-governing body in the country. Also, the new communist government issued a decree in 1945 which effectively dissolved all football clubs which were active during the war as a form of punishment for their participation in the fascist-run football championship.
Among others, Zagreb-based powerhouses such as HASK, ceased to exist, their property was nationalised, and several other clubs, most notably Dinamo Zagreb were formed to take their place. On the other hand, Hadjuk Split was spared as their players had escaped from their Italian-occupied home city of Split during World War II and joined Yugoslav Partisan in 1944. For this reason, Hajduk Split is the only major Croatian club which can claim continuity since its foundation in 1911.
In the period from 1945 to 1990 the Belgrade-based Yugoslav Football Federation was in charge of football in the entire country. In this period Croatian clubs competed within the Yugoslav league system and Croatian players were eligible for the Yugoslavian national team. In the following decades, Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split became two of the Yugoslav Big Four (along with Belgrade-based Partizan and Red Star), a quartet of clubs which significantly dominated football in communist Yugoslavia.
Dinamo Zagreb also won the 1966-7 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, which made them the first Yugoslav side to win a continental competition, and were the only Yugoslav club with European silverware. Red Star's 1990-1 European Cup win happened 24 years later. When the break up of Yugoslavia began to unfold in the early 1990s, the political situation was reflected on football pitches. On 13 May 1990 a riot occurred in Zagreb and interrupted the Dinamo Zagreb v Red Star league fixture. On 3 June 1990 the pre-scheduled Yugoslavian-Netherlands friendly was held at the same stadium, and some 20,000 Croatian fans booed the Yugoslav national anthem and cheered for the Dutch team instead. On 26 September 1990 Hajduk Split fans staged a violent pitch invasion against Partizan. On 17 October 1990 the first match of the newly established Croatia national football team was held, against the USA and following the end of the 1990-1 season, Croatian clubs decided to abandon Yugoslav competitions. In 1992 the country was affiliated with FIFA as Croatia and in June 1993 with UEFA.
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