One of our best athletes in the pre-war era, the first great star in the territory of the then Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the renowned Građanski player, also a national team representative and Olympian, Emanuel Emil Perška, spent almost 12 years at the Zagreb club with a brief interruption.

His range of interests extended far beyond sport itself - he was an excellent caricaturist, essayist and publicist, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, painted watercolours, published two books with specialized football themes, and was editor of Sportski List...

As a Croatian Home Guard member and sharp opponent of Croatia's unification into the Kingdom of SHS, especially without consulting the will of the Croatian people, Perška participated in the protests at Jelačić Square in Zagreb on December 5, 1918. The uprising was violently suppressed with numerous casualties, and Perška subsequently moved to Vienna out of fear of retaliation. He returned in 1919 at the invitation of Građanski's management with a guarantee of immunity from persecution.

His fate was also shaped by his later political activities. After the assassination of Croatian Peasant Party representatives in the National Assembly in Belgrade in June 1928, Perška refused to continue playing for the national team, with whom he had been at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam less than three weeks earlier. All Croatian players refused the call-up for the next match at that time. During the NDH era, he was a police officer and initiated the Croatian Military Revolutionary Committee related to commemorating the December 1918 uprising. According to available information, he perished on May 8, 1945, at Zagreb's Ksaver while resisting partisans.

He was born on June 20, 1896, in Stara Pazova, and took his first football steps at HAŠK. During World War I, he had to serve in the army in Hungary where he played for Győr, before returning to HAŠK after the war ended.

He was a versatile forward with excellent technique and game vision. With Građanski, he won championship titles in 1923, 1926 and 1928. For the national team of the then Kingdom, he played 14 matches and participated in the Olympic Games in 1920 in Antwerp and 1924 in Paris, and was also in the squad for the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam although he didn't make an appearance.

A year after joining Građanski, he went to play in France, appearing for Parisian CAS Generaux, but soon returned to Zagreb at the beginning of 1921 and stayed with them for the entire decade.

He is remembered for his emotional relationship with the Zagreb club and his famous words: "Građanski is mighty, unbreakable. Građanski is an idea. Građanski is a club that would have to be created today if it didn't exist. Građanski is necessary for Zagreb, because it is the true representative of Croatian sport. It was so in the past, it was so during the most difficult times for the Croatian people, it is so today. Građanski will be so in the future as well..."