80 years since KK Rabotnicki played its first match

On the Orthodox Christian feast of St. Elijah and the national holiday Ilinden, on 2 August 1946 — exactly 80 years ago — the first official basketball championship in what is now North Macedonia began in Skopje and finished the following day.

The tournament was held as part of the Second Physical Culture Rally and featured three teams: MAKEDONIJA, RABOTNICKI (both teams from Skopje) and VANCHO PRKE (from Shtip). After losing the opening match to Rabotnicki 30:8, the VANCHO PRKE side withdrew from the competition.

An improvised basketball court was marked out in the middle of the City Stadium in Skopje: the lines were drawn with lime, the hoops were simple iron rings without nets, and the games were played with a volleyball, which was much lighter than a basketball and difficult to push through the rim.

At that first official post‑war match in Skopje there were no personal or technical fouls recorded, timekeeping was manual with a stopwatch, there were no timeouts, and the game lasted exactly 40 minutes — two periods of 20 minutes. Only a single referee officiated, and the championship attracted broad public attention.

From improvised beginnings to regional competitions

Rabotnicki's lineup in that inaugural match included Slavko Matovski, Dragan Lukovski, Trajan Ivanovski, Boris Anastasov, Atanas Radevski, Vojche Dimitrovski and Ilija Ḱovkarov.

Through the decades KK Rabotnicki built a distinguished record: on the all‑time table of first‑league clubs in the SFRY it ranks 11th by number of seasons played (18) and matches played (420) in what was Europe's strongest league; the club finished third in the Yugoslav top flight regular season in 1991/92 and was eliminated by Crvena Zvezda in the playoff semifinals that same year, also reaching the Cup semifinal in Niš where it lost to eventual winner Partizan. Rabotnicki reached the Radivoj Korać Cup semifinal and the first final of the Yugoslav Cup roughly 50 years ago, reached the SFRY final four in 1988, and later, in independent Macedonia, won a record 15 championship titles, 10 national Cups and two Super Cups.

The club also featured in European competitions: in 1993/94 Rabotnicki played in one of the two quarterfinal groups of the FIBA European Cup (Group A alongside Smelt Olimpija and ahead of Taugres in the group standings), reached the later stages of the 2003/2004 FIBA Europe Cup — that season featured 48 teams overall, with a group phase of 32 clubs split into four conferences — and advanced to the Southern Conference final where it lost by two points to Tuborg; in 2008/2009 Rabotnicki reached the Balkan BIBL League final, losing to Bulgarian Rilski Sportist.

To mark the 80th anniversary a dedicated journalistic team led by editor‑producer Tadej Zdravkovski, presenter Zhivko Zdravkovski and chief editor Marko Manushev has spent three months producing the video series “Legends Speak”, with several episodes already published on the club YouTube channel KK Rabotnicki 1946.

Photo: press material from the event