Aalborg Boldspilklub is a Danish

sports club A sports club or sporting club, sometimes an athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports. Sports clubs range from organisations whose members play together, unpaid, and ...

based in the city of

Aalborg Aalborg (, , ) is Denmark's fourth largest town (behind Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Odense) with a population of 119,862 (1 July 2022) in the town proper and an urban population of 143,598 (1 July 2022). As of 1 July 2022, the Municipality of Aalb ...

. The club is also known as AaB for short (cf. logo) or Aalborg BK. Through time the club has had branches in

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the g ...

, and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, but currently controls teams in

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

, and

floorball Floorball is a type of floor hockey with five players and a goalkeeper in each team. Men and women play indoors with sticks and a plastic ball with holes. Matches are played in three twenty-minute periods. The sport of bandy also played a role ...

. All teams are competing in the top-flight Danish league in their respective sport. The kit sponsor for the club is

Adidas Adidas AG (; stylized as adidas since 1949) is a German multinational corporation, founded and headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, that designs and manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories. It is the largest sportswear manufactur ...

, and the principal sponsor for the football team is the regional bank Spar Nord. AaB was founded on 13 May 1885 by English engineers who were building

Jutland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...

's railway system, and the first years was concentrated on the game of cricket. It was initially named ''Aalborg Cricketklub'' (Aalborg Cricket club) but the name of the club was changed to ''Aalborg Boldklub'' (Aalborg ballclub) in 1899. Football was adopted on an amateur basis in 1902, and has since been the main sport, as the name was changed to the current ''Aalborg Boldspilklub af 1885'' (Aalborg Ball Game Club of 1885) in 1906.

Sections

Professional

Football

The club established a men's football team in 1902. The team has been a part of the

Danish Superliga The Danish Superliga ( da, Superligaen, ) is the current Danish football championship tournament, and administered by the Danish Football Association. It is the highest football league in Denmark and is currently contested by 12 teams each yea ...

championship since

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...

, winning four championships in

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

. As well as three Danish cups in 1966, 1970 and 2014. AaB became the first Danish team ever to participate in the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

Group Stage in

. AaB also qualified for the 2008–09 Champions League and qualified for the

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...

in the same season after a 3rd-place finish in their Champions League group.

Handball

Handball was adopted by AaB in 2003, when the local men's team Aalborg HSH was bought and renamed ''AaB Håndbold'' (AaB handball). Since then, the club has played in the Danish top-flight handball league, though they have never won the league title. In May 2007, AaB published the plans to take over the women's handball team of Aalborg DH, as a part of the AaB Håndbold brand, as Aalborg DH did not pass a due diligence test, the takeover was never completed. With the expanded handball section, the men's team have moved their games to Aalborg DH's venue,

Gigantium The Gigantium (called ''Sparekassen Danmark Arena'' for sponsoring reasons), in Aalborg, Denmark, is a large, rentable faire building, which hosts a large variety of concerts, markets and exhibitions, among other things. It has a capacity of 5, ...

Arena. AaB Håndbold was owned by AaB A/S until January 2011. In January 2011 the license was given to the new company "Aalborg Håndbold A/S".

Ice hockey

AaB also owned the professional ice hockey team

AaB Ishockey Aalborg Pirates is a professional ice hockey team (previously known as Aalborg Ishockey and AaB Ice Hockey) playing in the Danish ice hockey league, Metal Ligaen. The ice hockey team first appeared in 1967 as AaB Ice Hockey organized under Aalbor ...

, formed by the merger of AaB Ishockey and IK Aalborgwhich, and affiliated with the amateur youth development of Aalborg Ishockey Klub (AIK). AaB Ishockey won the 1981 Danish championship. From 2004 to 2007, AaB Ishockey won four

silver medal A silver medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc ...

s in a row. AaB Ishockey ceased operations at the end of the 2011/2012 season, replaced by the

Aalborg Pirates Aalborg Pirates is a professional ice hockey team (previously known as Aalborg Ishockey and AaB Ice Hockey) playing in the Danish ice hockey league, Metal Ligaen. The ice hockey team first appeared in 1967 as AaB Ice Hockey organized under Aalbor ...

Amateur

Basketball

In 2005, AaB cooperated with Aalborg Basketball Klub (ABK) in order to build the ''AaB Basket'' team. The basketball team was no success, and was dismantled in March 2007, Anders Laursen
AaB opgiver satsning på basketball
''Danmarks Radio'', March 28, 2007 reverting the team to its ABK roots.

Floorball

AaB also has a

division, which in 2007-08 secured promotion to the best league in Denmark. The team is located and plays matches at Hornevej where the rest of AaB's training facilities are located.

American football

AaB 89ers is a semi-professional

team, founded in 1989 as a member of the National League, the highest level league in Denmark.

Tennis

AaB Tennis plays at amateur level.