This year, both the First and Second League were played at the same time and in the same place, so there were 22 teams in Poreč, with around 300 chess players. We had one debutant, the Domžale team, while Mladost from Zagreb got a new sponsor, so the following years, the name of the work organization Industrogradnja would go along with their name.

Some interesting changes have also taken place at Mladost's biggest rivals, Partizan and Crvena Zvezda. After a full 25 years of playing for their clubs (both of them appeared at the team championship for the first time in 1948), two legends of Yugoslav chess, Aleksandar Matanović and Bora Ivkov, switched clubs! Matanović already played for Crvena Zvezda in the cup in May, while Ivkov arrived at Partizan a little later, so he missed the cup. Both had an identical performance in their new clubs, 5½ points each from 9 games (1 loss, 3 wins and 5 draws each), and the meeting between them in the 3rd round (Partizan's minimal victory) was perhaps their most interesting match until then. Matanović won (he played with white pieces), which is one of the few duels (perhaps the only one) between these two that did not end in a draw.

/ Taken from partizanopedia.rs /