When the first Croatian football championship was started in 1912, HAŠK were heading the table in mid-season and were later declared champions as the competition was abandoned after the winter break due to poor organization.

After experiencing a financial crisis in the 1920s and a fire that destroyed stands on their ground in the summer of 1936, the following decade saw immediate revival and the time of HAŠK's greatest success.

Dinamo's current youth academy and training ground located next to their stadium both bear the name Hitrec-Kacian, in honour of two HAŠK players, Ico Hitrec and Ratko Kacian.

After the fall of communism and in the midst of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the club was reactivated and officially registered in November 1990, but in name only – no sports activities were started as the new club leadership centered their activities on promoting HAŠK's legacy and organizing events intended to raise the public awareness of the contribution HAŠK has made to the development of sports in Croatia.

In an attempt to revive their glory days, the newly restarted club decided to enter competition sports again in 1993 so they merged with a local amateur football side called NK TPK from the Peščenica neighbourhood of Zagreb.