Dubrovnik Women

ŠD Gospino Polje seats around 1,500 and has been the club's ground since it went up in 1981, a hall built for a team that was already a decade old and about to become the biggest name in Croatian women's volleyball. The colours are dark blue and white, and the identity that grew inside that hall outlasted the building's ordinary look.

ŽOK Dubrovnik was founded in 1971. The club did not register itself as a formal legal entity until December 1998. That year the team took the Croatian Superliga and the Croatian Cup, completing a double, and beat Vakıfbank SK 3-0 in Dubrovnik to lift the CEV Champions League, the European title.

Zina Urlić played for the club back in 1971, then coached it through that title-winning decade before going on to lead the Croatian national team. Doris Buzolić captains the current side, which plays in the Superliga Women after coming up from the Prva Liga, and Nika Mandić and Lara Dežulović, both raised at Dubrovnik and both capped for Croatia, returned in 2024.

The rivalry with HAOK Mladost Zagreb has no name attached to it, just the fact of it, the way it was already there when the club was still finding its feet in that hall on Gospino Polje.