Hajduk's adventures in national championships began exactly 90 years ago. States came and went, so did competition formats, but the Whites have always, in every single season from then until now, played in the highest competition rank. Few  clubs older than a century can make this boast.

In the Fall of 1923  began the first football championship of the then-Yugoslavia. Up to then there had been no national-level competition, but only the championships of regional subfederations   which Hajduk won consistently. The first proper championship was not a league but a single-leg cup, open to the six subfederation-level champions. Hajduk took part as the Split subfederation champion from the 1922-23 season .

On Sunday, September 2 1923, the Whites were hosted by SAŠK, the champion of the Sarajevo subfederation. On the playing field at Kovačići, before a record-breaking crowd of seven thousand, the match was officiated by the Zagreb international Janko Justin.

Hajduk was coached by the legendary Luka Kaliterna, then a young man in this thirties. His charges were: Marin Brajević, Mirko Bonačić, Petar Dujmović, Ante Kesić, Mihovil Borovčić Kurir, Mirko Mihaljević, Mirko Machiedo, Božidar Šitić, Ernest Hochmann, Jaroslav Bohata and Vinko Radić. 

The Whites, despite a three-goal lead, were defeated 3:4 and eliminated from the competition. Hajduk's first championship goals were scored by Mirko Machiedo, Jaroslav Bohata and Mihovil Borovčić Kurir. Interestingly enough, the game-winning goal was actually an own goal by Mirko Bonačić the goalkeeper, who put the ball in his own net out of protest.

"Novo Doba," the Split newspaper of the day, ran an article about the scandalous events surrounding the game.