NK Čakovec

NK Čakovec is a Croatian football club based in the city of Čakovec. The club plays its home matches at Stadion Mladost (Youth Stadium), which has a capacity of 10,000 and also serves as a home stadium for local rivals NK Međimurje. The club's fans are known as the Demons.

History

The club was founded by the local craftsmen in 1920 and originally named Čakovečki športski klub (Čakovec Sports Club), abbreviated ČŠK. During World War II the city of Čakovec was under the occupation of Hungary and the club had to play in Hungarian competitions until 1945, when the city was liberated and the club given a new name of NK Jedinstvo. It carried that name for the next 20 years before being renamed MTČ due to ownership of the local clothing and textile factory carrying the same name. In the mid-1980s the club merged with local rivals NK Sloga Čakovec and carried the name of MTČ-Sloga, but the cooperation between this two clubs lasted for only a few years. During the 1990s the club was owned by the local catering company called Union and therefore carried the name of NK Čakovec Union. Late in 1996 the club was given its current name and a group of local businessmen took the leadership of it. At this time the club was going through a difficult time in which it didn't have enough equipment and had to play in the Third League, but recovered very fast and in 1999 almost qualified for the First League. In 2000 the club finally managed to achieve this success, which is also the biggest one in its history.

Upon qualifying in the First League the club's leadership decided to strengthen the team by bringing many of players who have already had experience of playing the First League football and they managed to achieve some surprisingly good results. Already in early season they attracted the attention by winning 2-0 with two players sent off the pitch over one of the Croatian top clubs Hajduk Split, which won the championship at the end of that season. The team continued to deliver some good results and fought for a place in the Top 6 for a long time during the regular season, but eventually fell short of this success by finishing at 7th place. The team started their second season in the First League with two wins, but won only 7 of the remaining 28 matches, having had 5 draws and unenviable 16 losses. This results were only good enough to take 14th place among 16 teams that played in that season and the club was relegated to the Second League. After the relegation many of top players left the club and some of them were later transferred to the new club NK Međimurje, which is currently the city's representative in the First League.

The club currently plays mediocre Second League football which is good enough to take places in the midfield of the table.