Recently the most famous Croatian sports newspaper “Sportske novosti” has published an article about club from Vinkovci without own place for trainings, that has done a real revolution in 11 years. Vinkovci, small town lying on the river Bosut, again will have table-tennis club in the strongest league and highest rank in Croatia – SUPERLEAGUE. Its name is the “Table tennis club CIBALIA” (STK CIBALIA).
Vinkovci used to be a strong table tennis center, but over time it all weakened. The last time Vinkovci had a club in the strongest rank of the Croatian table tennis competition, was in the 2010/11 season. After that season, club called “Lokomotiva” fell to a lower rank, and from 2018/19.season they are no longer even in the 1st Croatian League East. But like Phoenix rising from the dust, from the 2020/21 season, Vinkovci will again have a Super-league club in the men’s competition. This time it is about table tennis club “STK Cibalia”, a club whose story started in 2009 as “STK Amater”.
On September 5, 2009, the club was founded. Then, and a few years later, a couple of big table-tennis enthusiasts from Vinkovci who actually didn’t have big plans or dream of what the club has become today, told to themselves: “Let’s go play table tennis, and we’ll see where it bring us, how many people we can gather and what we can do!” Through time, ambitions and desires grew, opportunities were provided, and the club used them successfully. The story started on a recreational basis, 3-4 enthusiasts and lovers, and over time more and more people came. They changed their name in 2014 to “STK Cibalia”. Same as Vinkovci’s soccer club, named after old Roman name of Vinkovci who gave birth to two Roman emperors Valentinijan I. (321.-375.) and Valens (328.-378.).
In these 11 years of existence, STK Cibalia has created most of it by using own members’ resources and money, of course with a lot of unselfish, volunteer work of the leadership of the club and bringing their own money but also money from club’s friends and supporters. For 9 full years the club was without any money support coming from officials. Starting two years ago, the club became so called “table tennis holder of the quality” in the City of Vinkovci, where for the second year in a row, STK Cibalia realized the right to a subsidy that currently meets just a smaller part of the total annual needs of the club. Of course, there are firm promises. STK Cibalia’s competitive path was: the club played the 3rd league for one year, then the 2nd league for a year, the 1st Croatian league for two years and now STK Cibalia will play the “HEP Superleague”, highest table tennis rank in Croatia from 2020/2021 season. And the club wants to keep that status in future.
STK Cibalia has a youth, cadet table tennis school with about 30 children and in the project, in cooperation with the Ministry of Demography, called ‘TABLE TENNIS IS IN’ trains additional 60 children and the club employ 5 coaches.
The town at Bosut has produced many great players, such as the legendary Brankica Batinić, Damir Jurčić, Ljubinko Skakić, Herman Vukušić, Ivan Knežević, Davor Vejnović, Zlatko Jakšić, Žarko Zakić, Goran Grizelj, etc. Most of them where skilled players, who were the champions of Yugoslavia, Croatia …
Town Vinkovci was a strong railway hub in that part of Europe, there was a joke in the club that every second man here was a railway worker or related to someone in the railway company, and every third is a table tennis player or has something to do with table tennis. Or if he’s not a railroader, then he’s a neighbor. 
A lot of people played this beautiful sport and wanted their children or grandchildren to continue that path as well. Almost every day the club has inquiries of the arrival of a new child, but soon the club simply won’t have space for all those children.
Today Cibalia is one of the few clubs in Vinkovci that will play the highest rank in one of the Olympic sports like table tennis, but also a club that does not have an own hall or enough terms in the halls. Just part of the rent in the commercial fitness center Zara is paid by the city. Interestingly, along with handball club “RK Spačva”, STK Cibalia will be the only club in Vinkovci at the top of Croatian sports. It is a real rarity, even in this Croation region (“Vukovarsko-srijemska županija”) to find clubs in the highest rank of Croatian sports.
The leadership of club is working on getting a hall, because of all that children the club has. There is plan for the women players of the club to enter the 1st league in the next years, as well as goal to have 150 to 200 kids in the youth cadet school soon.
In addition, STK Cibalia organizes three tournaments, “Vinkovci Open”, “Memorial Dr. Goran Grizelj” and “Cibalia kids Open”. Over 150 players from four countries gather there, depending on the tournament. In cooperation with the Croatian Ministry of Demography, the club has a project worth 1 million HRK that’s still ongoing for a year. The project called “TABLE TENNIS IS IN” (“STOLNI TENIS JE IN”) deals with the introduction of children and young people in sports. The club has been running the Vinkovci amateur league “VLAST” for couple of years. STK Cibalia has 3 more teams, the second team was the champion of the 2nd league, the third is in the 2nd regional division, the fourth team is in the 3rd regional division. STK Cibalia has become a regional center for “Vukovarsko-srijemska županija”, and just has organized the first of a series of table-tennis training camps for children at the regional level. Vinkovci’s table tennis legend, Branka Batinić supports us, and Damir Jurčić is here with us too, with whose help the club came to the company Tibhar, which is STK Cibalia main table tennis equipment sponsor. Not even much stronger clubs have that.
The people of Vinkovci joined together in STK Cibalia club, have woken up at table tennis, they have ideas and will, but they are still waiting for the right support from officials. If anything, one should honor someone’s effort not waiting for everything to fall from the sky!
