Johan Hugo Levin (2 January 1886 – 26 October 1918) was a Swedish athlete,

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 ...

player and

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

administrator. Hugo Levin served in numerous sports organisations and was one of the initiators to the construction of the Gamla Ullevi stadium in

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 ...

Biography

In 1899 Levin became a member i Örgryte Idrottssällskap (ÖIS). In 1902, at the age of 16, Levin became secretary of the board of ÖIS and joined the ÖIS 1st team that eventually went on to become Swedish football champions three years in a row, 1904, 1905, and 1906. In 1905, Levin was elected secretary of Göteborgs Fotbollsförbund, which he was later the President of from 1912 until his death in 1918. During the

1912 Summer Olympics The 1912 Summer Olympics ( sv, Olympiska sommarspelen 1912), officially known as the Games of the V Olympiad ( sv, Den V olympiadens spel) and commonly known as Stockholm 1912, were an international multi-sport event held in Stockholm, Sweden, be ...

in Stockholm, Levin served as the Assistant Technical Delegate for the

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competiti ...

competition. In 1914, he was elected onto the Executive Board of the Swedish Football Association. Levin was also actively involved in

Svenska Idrottsförbundet Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

and the Swedish Sports Confederation (Riksidrottsförbundet), which later also appointed him as a member to what was then its highest organizational body ("Överstyrelsen"). A football match against Denmark in the Gamla Ullevi stadium on 20 October 1918 was Hugo Levin's last sporting event. Suffering from a high fever and being largely bedbound, Levin nonetheless attended the match to welcome honorary guest crown prince Gustav Adolf. Levin died on 26 October 1918 from bilateral

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

in the

1918 flu pandemic The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

Memory

In memory of Hugo Levin, a street to the East of the

Nya Ullevi Ullevi, sometimes known as Nya Ullevi (, ''New Ullevi''), is a multi-purpose stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden. It was built for the 1958 FIFA World Cup, but since then has also hosted the World Allround Speed Skating Championships six times; th ...

stadium was named Hugo Levins Väg in 1982. On 14 July 2013, Hugo Levin was posthumously introduced into the

Gothenburg Sports Hall of Fame The Gothenburg Sports Hall of Fame ( sv, Idrottens Hall of Fame i Göteborg) is a regional hall of fame honouring athletes and leaders from—or associated with— Gothenburg, Sweden. The hall of fame was established in 1999 with the help of a Got ...

. On 9 August 2015, a prize in memory of Hugo Levin entitled "HugoLevinPriset" was awarded in Liseberg, Gothenburg for the first time. The award will be given annually to one young leader, coach or administrator in Sports for outstanding service, dedication and leadership in service of Swedish sports.

References

1918 deaths Association football executives 1886 births Örgryte IS players Swedish men's footballers Deaths from Spanish flu Swedish football managers Sweden national football team managers Men's association football players not categorized by position Sportspeople from Jönköping County {{Sweden-footy-bio-stub