Joensuun Palloseura (abbreviated JoPS) is a

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 ...

club from

Joensuu Joensuu (; krl, Jovensuu; ) is a city and municipality in North Karelia, Finland, located on the northern shore of Lake Pyhäselkä (northern part of Lake Saimaa) at the mouth of the Pielinen River (''Pielisjoki''). It was founded in 1848. Th ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. JoPS is Joensuu's oldest football club having been formed in 1929. The club has competed in the second tier of Finnish football over 6 seasons, the last time being in 1968. JoPS currently plays in the

Kolmonen Kolmonen or III divisioona is the fourth level in the league system of Finnish football and comprises 104 Finnish football teams. The III divisioona was introduced in 1973 and in the mid-1990s became known as the Kolmonen (''Number Three'' in En ...

section that covers Eastern and Central Finland.

History

JoPS has covered the sports of

bandy Bandy is a winter sport and ball sport played by two teams wearing ice skates on a large ice surface (either indoors or outdoors) while using sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal. The international governing body for bandy is ...

pesäpallo Pesäpallo (; sv, boboll, both names literally meaning "nest ball", colloquially known in Finnish as pesis, also referred to as Finnish baseball) is a fast-moving bat-and-ball sport that is often referred to as the national sport of Finland a ...

, football, and

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 ...

. The football club officially began operations in 1930, the same year as the Karelian District Football Association was founded. In the 1940s, JoPS was the leading bandy club of North Karelia. The team rose to the Premier Division in 1940 and remained in the highest division until 1949 without winning any medals. In the early 1950s, JoPS lost the number one club status for bandy in the city of Joensuu, and started to invest more in football. JoPS dominated the North Karelian football until the 1970s. The club competed in the second tier of Finnish football in 1938, 1952, 1958–59, 1964 and 1968. It also won the district championships in a number of years in succession in Joensuu in the period 1949–1956. In the early 1970s, JoPS participated in the re-structured league system which introduced the new Third Division. The team were promoted at the end of the 1972 season to the Second Division Division, but 1973 was the only year that they played at this level the team gaining only 4 points. JoPS amalgamated with Karpalo in October 1973, but became operational again in 1976 and played in the 1980s in the Third Division. After ten years of silence, the club name JoPS appeared again in the new millennium when the club resumed its football activities. JoPS has run a team in the

since 2002.

Notable former players

* Raimo Kauppinen – former Finnish footballer who began career at Joensuu in 1958–1959 before moving on to HJK (1960–1968 and 1971) and

Kiffen Kronohagens Idrottsförening (abbreviated KIF or Kiffen) ( en, Kruununhaka Sports Association) is a sports club from Helsinki, Finland. The club was founded on 27 September 1908, and has been mainly known for the achievements of its association ...

1969–1970. He played in one A-team international game. * Seppo Pelkonen – former Finnish footballer who played 16 A-team international matches and 4 B-team international matches. He played for

KuPS Kuopion Palloseura (or KuPS) is a Finnish football club, based in the ninth most populated city of Finland, Kuopio. KuPS plays in Finland's Premier League, Veikkausliiga. KuPS has won the Finnish championship six times, the Finnish Cup 4 times ...

who won the Finnish championship in 1956.

Season to season

2010 season

JoPS First Team are competing in the

administered by the Itä-Suomi SPL and Keski-Suomi SPL. This is the fourth highest tier in the Finnish football system. JoPS/2 are participating in Section A (Lohko A) of the

Nelonen Nelonen () is a Finnish commercial television channel. It started out as Helsinki's local television channel PTV in 1990 on the HTV cable network (now part of DNA Welho), and changed its name first to PTV4. On June 1, 1997, the channel expand ...

administered by the Itä-Suomi SPL.

Players in 2011

References and sources

Official Website
*

Finnish Wikipedia The Finnish Wikipedia ( fi, Suomenkielinen Wikipedia) is the edition of Wikipedia in the Finnish language. By article count, it is the largest Wikipedia with about articles as of . Wikipedia is the only encyclopedia in Finnish which is still up ...

Joensuun Palloseura-JOPS Facebook

Footnotes

{{Reflist Football clubs in Finland Joensuu 1929 establishments in Finland