KFUMs Boldklub (also known as KFUM) 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

Emdrup Emdrup is a neighbourhood straddling the border between the Bispebjerg and Østerbro district of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is located between Utterslev Mose in the west and the Helsingør Motorway in the east, just south of the border with Glad ...

in the

Bispebjerg Bispebjerg, more commonly referred to as Nordvest (English: North-West), is one of the 10 official districts of Copenhagen, Denmark. Located on the northern border of the municipality, it covers an area of 5.39 km² and a population of 40,033 ...

district of

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, founded in 1899. The club is best known for its 1940s

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

football team. It played six seasons in the top-flight

Danish football championship The Danish football champions are the winners of the highest league of football in Denmark. The title has been contested since 1913, in a varying form of competitions. Since 1991, the winners have been found through the Danish Superliga champions ...

from 1940 to 1958. KFUM is an independent sports club under the Copenhagen ''KFUM Centralforeningen'' (English:

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

Central Association). Apart from football, KFUM has also had teams playing

team 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 ...

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

, and

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

. These other sports teams branched off in 2001, leaving only football at KFUMs Boldklub.

History

KFUMs Boldklub was founded on June 4, 1899 under the name of Kristelig Idrætsforening ( en, Christian Sports Association). KFUM's football team played its first competitive game in 1901, losing 14–0 to

Akademisk Boldklub Akademisk Boldklub Gladsaxe (or AB) is a Danish professional football club from Gladsaxe north of Copenhagen, currently playing at the 3rd highest level of Danish domestic football in the Danish 2nd Division group 1. The club was established on F ...

. When the four biggest teams decided to quit the

Copenhagen Football Association DBU Copenhagen ( da, DBU København) is the local governing body for association football and futsal in Copenhagen, Denmark. They are responsible for the governance and development of men's and women's football at all levels in the region. DBU Cop ...

, KFUM was one of the replacement teams in the 1911 Copenhagen Football Championship.http://www.osterbro-if.dk/data/1595/filedb/21158.pdf , p.10 KFUM finished the tournament in joint last place, and was moved out of the championship when the big teams returned for the following season. KFUM competed in the lower tiers of Copenhagen football until 1930, when the club entered the nationwide

Danish 2nd Division The 2nd Division ( da, Danmarksturneringens 2. division or Herre-DM 2. division) is a semi-professional association football league for men and the third division in Denmark. It is organised by the Divisionsforeningen on behalf of the Danish Footb ...

. During the

Occupation of Denmark At the outset of World War II in September 1939, Denmark declared itself neutral. For most of the war, the country was a protectorate and then an occupied territory of Germany. The decision to occupy Denmark was taken in Berlin on 17 December ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, KFUM was included in the top-flight

Danish football champions The Danish football champions are the winners of the highest league of football in Denmark. The title has been contested since 1913, in a varying form of competitions. Since 1991, the winners have been found through the Danish Superliga champions ...

hip. KFUM reached the semi-finals of the 1940–41 Danish War Tournament and the quarter-finals for the following three seasons. After the war, KFUM was moved to the 2nd Division again. When KFUM finished in second place in the 1956–57 2nd Division season, the club won

promotion Promotion may refer to: Marketing * Promotion (marketing), one of the four marketing mix elements, comprising any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or i ...

for the top-flight

Danish 1st Division The 1st Division (''1. Division'') is the second-highest football league in Denmark, also known as NordicBet Liga for sponsorship reasons. From 1945 to 1991 the 1. Division was the name of the highest level of football in Denmark. With the forma ...

. It was a short trip to the 1st Division; following 11 points in 22 games, KFUM were

relegated In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

straight back into the 2nd Division. KFUM played on in the 2nd and

Danish 3rd Division The 3rd Division ( da, Danmarksturneringens 3. division or Herre-DM 3. division) is the fourth tier of the Danish football league system since the 2021–22 season. It is a semi-professional association football league for men. It is organised by ...

. The club was relegated from the 3rd Division into the lower leagues in 1975, and has not since played in the upper divisions. The football club played its games at the

Fælledparken The park Fælledparken in Copenhagen, Denmark, was created 1906–1914 by landscape architect Edvard Glæsel in cooperation with the Copenhagen Municipality on the commons (Danish: ''fælled'') previously named ''Nørrefælled'' and ''Østerfæl ...

, a

common Common may refer to: Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts * Clapham Common, originally com ...

shared by the smaller Copenhagen clubs. In 1921, KFUM moved to Emdrupparken, where a new club house was built in 1943, designed by architect

Arne Jacobsen Arne Emil Jacobsen, Hon. FAIA () 11 February 1902 – 24 March 1971) was a Danish architect and furniture designer. He is remembered for his contribution to architectural functionalism and for the worldwide success he enjoyed with simple we ...

. KFUM was one of several small Copenhagen clubs who founded the

Alliancen Alliancen (Danish for ''the alliance'') is a Danish association football organisation founded in 1940 by Fremad Amager, HIK, KFUMs Boldklub, B 1908 and ØB. Køge, Brønshøj, Skovshoved IF, Vanløse, Næstved and Esbjerg all joined later. The ...

association. Alliancen arranged exhibition games to earn spectator entrance fees, and was in direct competition with the high-profile

Stævnet Stævnet ( da, the event or ''the meeting'') or Copenhagen XI were a Danish association football representative team which had its prime before 1970, however it was active until 1994. Stævnet participated in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the precur ...

association.

International players

As a small club, KFUM saw its best players move to the bigger Copenhagen clubs, including later Danish national team players

Karl Aage Hansen Karl Aage Hansen (4 July 1921 – 23 November 1990) was a Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmar ...

, Ivan Jensen, Steen Blicher, Dan Ohland-Andersen, and Gert Hansen. Only three players represented KFUM in the national team: * Einar Larsen (1923) * Axel W. Petersen (1946) * Egon Hansen (1965)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:KFUMs Boldklub 1899 establishments in Denmark Kobenhavn Football clubs in Copenhagen Handball clubs in Denmark Sports clubs and teams in Denmark Badminton clubs in Denmark Sports clubs and teams established in 1899 Sports clubs and teams founded by the YMCA