POP 33 - "Ćurčić's 35 for the triumph over Zvezda"
During the 50s of the last century, basketball was mostly played on open courts (the first Yugoslav indoor championship was played only in the 1967/68 season), but even during the winter months, the teams used the modest conditions provided by the few closed halls. Thus, usually at the end of November, as part of the celebration of Republic Day, the final tournament of the Cup of Serbia was played (the first competition for the Cup of Yugoslavia was held only in 1959).
This is the story of Partizan's victory over Red Star in the final of the Serbian Cup back in 1957, when our team triumphed with a score of 91:89 (50:45). This, for that time, incredibly efficient game, which was played in the hall of the Institute of Physical Culture (old DIF), was marked by the outstanding Borislav Ćurčić, who scored as many as 35 points. On November 30, 1957, the hardened national team member and great shooter "buried" the basket of his former club (he played for Red Star until 1955) and after returning from Italy, where he played for the Cantu team for two seasons, proved his playing class. A day earlier, Partizan defeated Proleter from Zrenjanin in the semi-finals with 76:69.
The newspaper report from the final match states that Partizan achieved a well-deserved victory, and that "basketball fans who managed to sneak into the IFK hall could once again admire the masterful shot of Ćurčić, once the golden arm of Yugoslav basketball."
Borislav Ćurčić (1932-2015) played for Partizan until 1965, playing 134 games in which he scored 1,425 points. He was also the coach of the first team from 1965 to 1967.
* Many thanks to Slavoljub Vidović from Brčko, who sent us a newspaper article about this match from his documentation.
