A Gothenburg derby ( sv, Göteborgsderby) is the name given to any fixture between

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 ...

clubs from

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

, the traditional football capital of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. The major derbies are traditionally played between

GAIS , neighboring_municipalities= Altstätten (SG), Appenzell (AI), Bühler (AR), Eichberg (SG), Rüte (AI), Schlatt-Haslen (AI), Trogen (AR) , twintowns= } Gais () is a village and a municipality in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden i ...

, IFK Göteborg, and Örgryte IS, but five other Gothenburg teams have also played in the top tier of Swedish football, giving rise to additional hotly contested derbies.

Clubs in Gothenburg

The following clubs from Gothenburg are either playing in tier 1–3 of the

Swedish football league system The Swedish football league system is a series of interconnected leagues for club football in Sweden which is controlled by the Swedish Football Association The Swedish Football Association ( sv, Svenska Fotbollförbundet, SvFF) is the go ...

, or have previously played in the top tier of Swedish football.

Gothenburg derbies

Major Gothenburg derbies

Matches between any two of the three

Göteborgsalliansen ''Göteborgsalliansen'' is a football alliance created in 1921 by the three Gothenburg-clubs GAIS, IFK Göteborg and Örgryte IS. The clubs were dominating Swedish football at the time and got together to arrange big international games with the bes ...

clubs are major Gothenburg derbies, with matches involving IFK Göteborg being the most popular. No other rivals in Swedish football have met more times than IFK Göteborg and Örgryte IS, and the record attendance for club football in Sweden—52,194–was set on 3 June 1959 in an

Allsvenskan Allsvenskan (; en, the All-Swedish, also known as Fotbollsallsvenskan, en, the Football All-Swedish) is a Swedish professional league for men's association football clubs. It was founded in 1924 and is the top tier of the Swedish football lea ...

match between those two clubs. The record attendance for second tier Swedish football was set on 20 May 1976, when a crowd of 50,690 saw

and IFK Göteborg play in Division 2.

Minor Gothenburg derbies

A further five Gothenburg clubs have played top tier football, and matches between any one of these clubs and the established big three have occasionally developed into minor rivalries. Matches against IFK Göteborg have generally attracted the largest crowds, with GAIS and Örgryte IS as the second and third most attractive matches, respectively.

Göteborgs FF Göteborgs FF is a Swedish football club located in Gothenburg. Background Göteborgs Fotbollförening was founded on 20 August 1897 and is located in Gothenburg. The club is two times runners-up in Svenska Mästerskapet (first in 1899 and ...

tried to challenge Örgryte IS as the best club from Gothenburg in the early years of the 20th century, and Redbergslids IK made a one-year appearance in Allsvenskan in the 1930s, attracting the third largest average attendance during that season. Gårda BK played eight straight seasons in Allsvenskan in the late 1930s and early 1940s, finishing as the best Gothenburg team two times. Västra Frölunda IF repeated Gårda's feat in 1998, and played 10 seasons in the top tier during the 1980s and 1990s. BK Häcken also made their first appearance in Allsvenskan in the 1980s, but have managed to retain their status as a regular top tier club in part thanks to a stable financial situation.

Citations

References

* * *