At Age of 86 left us one of the greatest Rugbymen Dusan-Duda Novakov of former Yugoslavia and Serbia.
Duda was the player, captain and coach of “Dinamo” RFC (Pancevo), as such he won altogether four Yugoslav Championships and six National Cup titles.
In summer 1968 he was the player and Captain of the first ever Senior Yugoslav National Team, that took part at World Youth Sport Games in Bulgaria (Stara Zagora).
As the first U19 National Coach he led U19 National Team in 1974 when Yugoslavia took part at FIRA European Championship in Heidelberg (Germany).
In 1980 he was nominated as Senior National Team coach and won the second place in the Group B of FIRA Nations Cup.
This was the greatest ever success of Yugoslav Senior Team . . .
Dusan Novakov was the one of three personalities that coached – selected U19 National Team and Senior National side, apart from Suvad Kapetanovic (Zenica) and Marko Protega (Split).
From 2001 -2004 Duda was also U18 National Coach of Serbia (SR Yugoslavia).
He was honoured with the Golden Plaque of Yugoslav Rugby Union on the occasion of 25th Anniversary celebrations (1954 – 1979) and in 2018 with the Golden Plaque of Serbian Rugby Union, on the occasion of Centennial Celebration of Rugby in Serbia (1918 -2018).
As “Golden Oldie player” he founded (in 1980), together with his national team mates Lazar Kovac, Zoran Osljanac, Andreja Parcetic and Marko Protega Veteran Rugby Club “Zrelo Doba” that several years after took part at World Golden Oldies Rugby Festival in Auckland (NZ), organised on the occasion of the 1st Rugby World Cup 1987.
Duda was also one of the founders of European Veteran Rugby Association (EVRA) in 2010, with seat in Heidelberg . . . he and his “generation” team mates had played for EVRA Select XV Team (unofficial European rugby veterans selection) until 2019.
In 2018 Dusan Novakov had been asked in one interview to “recall” How he started to be fully involved with Rugby? He said: “In the 50’s of the last century French Rugby Team ARL visited Pancevo to play promotional game. I was already involved with sports, I was swimmer, played water-polo in the summer, Ice Hockey , skating in the winter.
So with my friends Dule Stepanov and Zoran Osljanac I went to the City Stadium. The “result” of the visiting this match was that we all three went next week to “Staklara” rugby playground . . . and remained in Rugby until now a days. Our first coach was Boris Blazevic from Romania . . . under his leadership I learned to deal with trainings & matches, what helped me in my learning to coach the teams.”
Duda “ended” his interview with the words: “Rugby was the best experience of my lifetime.”
Long live the Memory on this great Rugby man . . .
Slavisa Milenkovic
Marko Protega
Photos: by courtesy of Lazar Kovac (Dinamo, Pancevo)
EVRA Archive
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