Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Göteborg, officially IFK Göteborg Fotboll, commonly known as IFK Göteborg, is a Swedish professional football club based in Gothenburg IFK Göteborg (sports club).
1895–1904
The first IFK association in Gothenburg was founded in 1895, with Oscar Lagerstedt as chairman. It was short-lived, although it has been confirmed that it founded a small-bore rifle shooting challenge prize in the winter of 1896. The next attempt to found an IFK club in Gothenburg was made on 5 September 1897, when two brothers named Friman,The first names of the brothers are not found in any of the sources, and their last name is in some sources written as Friberg instead of Friman. Eric Clase and Anton JohanssonJohansson later on became a big Gothenburg-hater. He was also one of the first members of the Swedish Football Association (SvFF) started in 1904. IFK Göteborg 1904–2004, pp. 9 and 37. reconstructed the club. The club was active until at least 1899, but after that no information can be found that confirms the club still existed. During those years, the main activity was athletics, and for a short time in 1899, four-time Olympic gold medalist Eric Flemming was active in the club.
There was no further activity of any IFK association in Gothenburg between 1900 and 1904. The present-day IFK Göteborg was founded when Arthur "Lång-Arthur" Andersson, John Säwström, and two students at Chalmers University of Technology, Arthur Wingren and Stellan Ljungberg, wanted to start an IFK club in Gothenburg. The idea came to their minds after reading a news-item which expressed confusion as to why the second largest city in Sweden still did not have an IFK association. Late in the evening of 2 October 1904, it was decided to start the club, and two days later on 4 October, IFK Göteborg became the 39th IFK association. Committees for football, hockey and parties were also founded at the meeting. One of the important initial questions raised was uniform colour. As with almost all IFK clubs, the colors decided on were blue and white. It was also decided that the uniform should consist of blue and white vertically striped jerseys, with blue shorts. The ownership group however lacked the financial resources to buy that kind of striped jersey, so blue ones with a single horizontal white stripe were used instead.
1904–19 The first match ever played ended in a 4–1 victory against IK Viking, a club from the local area. The foundation of IFK Göteborg was important for the development of football in the city, as until that point, Örgryte IS (ÖIS), the largest of the area clubs, had dominated the scene. IFK Göteborg represented some needed competition, although ÖIS initially maintained its traditional dominance (up until 1907, IFK only drew once and were outscored by 79–12). IFK also competed in the IFK association competition, but lost to IFK Stockholm in the finals.
ÖIS, a dominant and impressive team in Swedish football, outclassed IFK in almost all their meetings the first years. On 13 October 1907, IFK Göteborg, however, became the first Swedish team in a four years long spell to stop their win streak. IFK Göteborg also won the local league in Gothenburg. It is conjectured that this probably lead to the decision by the district boardThe board was composed of almost exclusively supporters of Örgryte IS. Jönsson, 1906-10 . to disqualify IFK Göteborg. However, the Swedish Football Association disagreed with the decision and subsequently revoked it. IFK won the Swedish Championships for the first time in 1908 by winning the cup tournament Svenska Mästerskapet, and three players from the club were selected to play for Sweden in the first game played by the Sweden national team.The game was played on 12 July 1908 ending in an 11–3 win over Norway. IFK player Erik Börjesson scored the historic first goal. IFK finished the season by playing against international teams for their first time, the Danish clubs Østerbro BK and Boldklubben af 1893.
In 1910, the club finished third in the first season of Svenska Serien ever played, although the club was declared Swedish Champions as they won Svenska Mästerskapet.The Swedish Champions were decided by the cup tournament Svenska Mästerskapet from 1896 to 1925. The team played its first game ever using their blue and white striped jerseys. The team played 1–1 in a game in 1912 against what became the Swedish Olympic team, and the newspapers in Stockholm nominated IFK Göteborg as "the best Swedish football club ever". The club acted as the national team the next year, where they played Norway to a 1–1 draw. This marked both the first and last time that the Sweden national team was represented by only one club.
The first big scandal in Swedish football occurred in 1914 when several players, leaders, and supporters from IFK and ÖIS started a fight in the 1/8-final of Svenska Mästerskapet. Two years later, in 1916, IFK moved to its new home stadium Gamla Ullevi. Due to the long-standing conflict between the clubs from Gothenburg, Stockholm and the SvFF, the national team between 1913 and 1916 was composed of players from both Stockholm and Gothenburg, but never simultaneously. IFK Göteborg won Svenska Serien for the fifth consecutive season in 1917, but the ongoing war and the Spanish flu led to the dissolution of the competition. As a replacement, a private competition called Fyrkantserien was started in 1918, and IFK also won that competition, which was dissolved the next year.
1920–39
The club, with its 875 members started the new decennium by beating both local rivals GAIS and ÖIS in Svenska Mästerskapet, but lost in the semi-finals against Djurgårdens IF. The club gained its first official coach in 1921, Alexander Brody from Hungary. Svenska Serien was played again that year, IFK finishing fifth, but the league was dissolved again in 1924. After another conflict with the SvFF, the three clubs composing the Gothenburg-alliance, IFK, ÖIS and GAIS, boycotted the Swedish Championship tournament, Svenska Mästerskapen, in 1923.
The first Swedish official national league, Allsvenskan, was started in the autumn of 1924. The same year as the legendary Filip "Svarte-Filip" Johansson made his debut for IFK Göteborg. IFK's debut in Allsvenskan was played against Malmö FF and ended in a 1–1 draw. The club finished second, but "Svare-Filip" scored 39 goals in 22 games and won the top-scoring league. The next five seasons, IFK never finished worse than fourth, but also never won the league. Swedish football was still dominated by the three big clubs from Gothenburg, IFK, ÖIS and GAIS.
The 30s started as the 20s ended, with a lot of second and third places, but no win. The 1932–33 season ended with "Svarte-Filip" retiring, having reached a total of 177 goals in 181 Allsvenskan games, and totalling 329 goals for IFK. IFK finally won its first Allsvenskan title in the spring of 1935 after eight silver and bronze medals since the league start. As the only Swedish football club, IFK and its players boycotted the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, Nazi Germany.The three players that were nominated to the national team but declined to take part were Ernst Andersson, Fritz Berg and Gunnar Löfgren. The decision was accepted by the SvFF and the other players, but the press went hard on them. Anton Johansson, mentioned above, uttered the words "Gothenburgers aren't real Swedes". IFK Göteborg 1904–2004, p. 37. Swedish football was no longer dominated by teams from Gothenburg in the latter half of the thirties, with both IFK Göteborg and GAIS being relegated in 1937–38, although IFK was promoted back to Allsvenskan the next season. Back in the highest division, IFK finished second as it was decided to finish the league, even after the breakout of World War II.
1940–69
Mobilization affected the clubs as many players were doing their military service. Gunnar Gren (later A.C. Milan) made his debut in IFK as they won the league in 1941–42. The rest of the 40s were a sad time for the supporters of the club and the decade was ended by IFK being relegated from Allsvenskan for the second time. The only light in the dark was Gunnar Gren, being the top scorer in 1946–47 and was together with Gunnar Nordahl playing in a 'Rest of Europe' team against England at Wembley. He was also awarded Guldbollen as the best player in Sweden, and won an Olympic Games gold medal with the Swedish team in 1948.
IFK was promoted to Allsvenskan after one season in Division 2. They barely avoided relegation in 1954–55. The talented Bertil "Bebben" Johansson played for IFK and scored 27 goals when they won the long season league played autumn 1957 to autumn 1958. This was done as Sweden changed system from autumn/spring to spring/autumn. IFK competed in a European cup (the European Champion Clubs' Cup) for the first time, being eliminated in the second round. The still unbeaten Allsvenskan record attendance of 52,194 was set when IFK played ÖIS on Nya Ullevi in 1959.
IFK Göteborg gained the nickname "Änglarna" (the Angels) when a newspaper seller coined the name after seeing a heavenly freekick being shot by "Bebben". The training ground "Kamratgården" was built and opened in 1961. One of the founders, John Säwström died in 1962. The 60s were not very kind to the club, with IFK finishing in the middle of the league almost every year, even with "Bebben" as coach. The legendary Bengt "Fölet" Berndtsson retired in 1967, after setting the record for most matches played for IFK, 598. The team surprisingly won Allsvenskan in 1969.
1970–89
1970 was the darkest year in the history of IFK. After having won the league the year before, the team was relegated after losing the last game in the series against Örebro SK. 4,000 angry IFK supporters stormed the field in the last few minutes of the game and vandalized the field and the goals, trying to get a re-match. After a big fight between the police and the hooligans, it was decided that the end score should stand. IFK was also eliminated in the first round in the European Cup. After three seasons in the second league, IFK had bought 34 players, but still had not won Division 2 and be promoted back to Allsvenskan. In 1975, still playing in the second league, IFK bought Torbjörn Nilsson and Ove Kindvall. Torbjörn Nilsson showed the way and IFK was promoted to Allsvenskan in 1976. A newspaper arranged a poll, showing that 60% of the people in Gothenburg supported IFK, 25% supported Örgryte IS and 15% GAIS.This has naturally changed since, but a new poll held in 2004 had similar figures for IFK, 55%, while ÖIS' and GAIS' numbers had dropped to about 10%. A new record was set for Swedish Division 2 football when 50,690 persons watched IFK-GAIS at Ullevi.
The first season in Allsvenskan this decade ended with a sixth place, having bought many good players, including Ralf Edström, Glenn Holm and Tommy Holmgren. In 1978, IFK hired the coach Sven-Göran Eriksson, previously only having minor successes in lower leagues, to make IFK Göteborg a top team once again. He introduced the 4-4-2 system with "pressure and support", a system that was going to give IFK great success later on. The 70s ended with a second place in Allsvenskan and the first gold medal in Svenska Cupen.