NK Istra 1961NK Istra 1961 is a Croatian football club from Pula whose roots trace back to 1948, when the team Uljanik was formed, named after the local shipyard. The history of football in Pula, however, is considerably more complex — in 1961 Uljanik merged with NK Pula to form NK Istra, a club that remained the city's leading side for the following four decades. The Uljanik name was revived as early as 1964 as a separate, newly formed club, which for years operated in the shadow of the more decorated NK Istra.
The situation reversed in the early 2000s — while the original NK Istra declined, eventually dropping into regional leagues, it was Uljanik that took over the role of Pula's flagship club. In the 2002–03 season, the team, still competing in the second division at the time, reached the Croatian Cup final, losing the two-legged tie to Hajduk Split. Subsequent name changes — to Pula 1856, Pula Staro Češko, and finally, in 2007, to the current Istra 1961 — reflected a search for identity tied to the region's history, even though the club is not formally the direct successor of the club founded in the year that appears in its name.
The team, known for its distinctive green and yellow colours referencing the flag of Istria, and its nickname Zeleno-žuti (The Green-Yellows), established itself permanently in the Croatian top flight from the 2009–10 season, after winning the second-division championship. The club reached its second-ever Croatian Cup final in 2021, again finishing the campaign without a trophy. Despite the lack of major honours in its cabinet, Istra 1961 remains one of the most stable clubs in Croatian football, regularly finishing in the middle of the top-flight table.
The team plays its home matches at the Aldo Drosina Stadium, named after the legendary striker who, in the post-war years, played for all three key Pula clubs — Uljanik, NK Pula and NK Istra. Thoroughly modernised between 1993 and 2011, the venue hosted, among other events, a friendly between the Croatian and Czech national teams in 2011, and previously operated under the name Campo del Littorio, opened as early as 1931 during Italian rule over the city.