This latest exhibit from the European club collection features the fabulous Borac Banja Luka, another former-Yugoslavian name of such lovely exoticism that proved impossible to resist upon encounter, which would surely have been around the time the club made its inaugural appearance in continental competition in the 1975-76 Cup-Winners’ Cup, being eliminated in the second round by eventual winners Anderlecht, who went on to break the mighty Wrexham’s hearts in the quarter-finals (how, in a parallel universe, a tie against Borac would have stirred the passions & imagination).
As with the other badge-collecting-worthy clubs, Borac Banja Luka’s is a name that once lodged in the consciousness has proved to be enduring, their fortunes kept an eye on & followed whatever they may be, & another, being discovered as then-Yugoslavian, that still provides a little pang of ‘Ostalgie’ for a particular time which the object of the badge itself recalls in the vintage of its 'creamy' appearance & its aesthetic, representing as it does the Yugoslav-era club crest, with the name emblazoned across the red-starred tricolour. In this aspect, the badges of the east European teams particularly most certainly possess a distinctly ‘hauntological’ character, imbued as they are with the memory of the presence of the post-war Soviet bloc & the sheer intriguing ‘behind the Iron Curtain’ mystery, as mediated, of the football teams & players from.
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