Pyrkivä Turku,

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

''Turun Pyrkivä'', earlier

Maaria Maaria (''S:t Marie'' in Swedish) is a former municipality of Finland in what is now the northern part of the city of Turku. The area has been inhabited since the Iron Age, and it became an important village in the 15th century with the construct ...

n Pyrkivä (''pyrkivä'' meaning "endeavouring") is a sports club from

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

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 ...

, which was founded in 1906 by sportsmen who represented artistic gymnastics.History of Turun Pyrkivä Gymnastics section.
/ref> The club was founded as a section of the Työväenyhdistys Tarmo (‘Workers Association Vigour’ or ‘Stamina’ of

Raunistula Raunistula is a district of the city of Turku, in Finland. It is located to the north of the city centre, on the west bank of the river Aura. Raunistula consists mostly of low-density residential area, and the remains of the industrial area ther ...

. In 1912 the club became independent of its parent organisation, and green was chosen as its colour. In the early years the most popular sports were

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), competi ...

and

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

, but perhaps surprisingly,

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

was also popular, and at best the club presented 16 different plays per year, and it also arranged screenings of movies. Today the main sports of the club are

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

rink bandy Rink bandy is a variant of the larger sport of bandy. Unlike bandy which is played on a large bandy field, rink bandy is played on significantly smaller ice hockey sized ice rinks. While a bandy field is about the same size as a football pitc ...

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 ...

artistic gymnastics Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics in which athletes perform short routines on different apparatuses. The sport is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), which designs the Code of Points and regulates ...

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 ...

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 ...

, and athletics. The gymnasts of Pyrkivä Turku have had considerable success both on the national and the international level:

Kaino Lempinen Kaino Lempinen (8 February 1921 – 13 September 2003) was a Finnish gymnast who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics The 1952 Summer Olympics ( fi, Kesäolympialaiset 1952; sv, Olympiska sommarspelen 1952), officially known as the Game ...

was a member of the team that won

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. The most recent successful gymnast from Pyrkivä has been Annukka Almenoksa, who won 18 Finnish championships (1998–2004) and is still the only Finnish woman who has reached the finals in a major international competition ( 2002 European Women's Artistic Gymnastics Championships). In

Pyrkivä played in top flight, in the Finnish Rink Bandy League, until the end of the 2007–2008 season. The club is also active in

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 ...

proper and

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 ...

. In the former sport the club holds 11 championships in the competitions of the

Finnish Workers' Sports Federation The Finnish Workers' Sports Federation ( fi, Suomen Työväen Urheiluliitto, ''TUL'', sv, Arbetarnas Idrottsförbund i Finland, ''AIF'') is a Finnish amateur sports organization founded in 1919. In addition to the competitive sports, TUL focuses o ...

. The club played in the Finnish Bandy Championship Series in

1945 1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which nuclear weapons have been used in combat. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. Januar ...

. During the years 1948–1952 the club played in a Championship challenge against the bandy champion of the series governed by the Football Association of Finland, but they lost each time. Pyrkivä has played two spells in the top flight of Finnish football, the

Mestaruussarja Mestaruussarja (Championship series) was the top division of Finland, Finnish association football, football from 1930 to 1989. It was replaced by Veikkausliiga in 1990. In 1930 league format was used for the first time to decide the Finnish cham ...

, during 1952— 1956 and during 1978— 1979. In 1954 the club won the championship, and in 1952 it achieved bronze. In addition to this, the club has played 17 seasons on the second level, in Division I.

Season to season

*7 seasons in ''

Veikkausliiga Veikkausliiga (; sv, Tipsligan) is the premier division of Finnish football, the highest tier of the Finnish football league structure, comprising the top 12 clubs of the country. Its main sponsor is the Finnish national betting agency Veikkau ...

'' *17 seasons in ''

Ykkönen ''Ykkönen'' (Finnish for 'Number One'; sv, Ettan) is the second highest level of the Finnish football league system (after the Veikkausliiga), although it is the highest league managed by the Football Association of Finland. The teams also play ...

'' *5 seasons in ''

Kakkonen Kakkonen or II divisioona is the third level in the Finnish football league system, league system of Finnish football and comprises 36 Finland, Finnish football (soccer), football teams. The II divisioona was introduced in 1973 and in the mid-1 ...

'' *4 season in ''

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 ...

'' *2 season in ''

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 ...

References

External links

Pyrkivä Turku homepages
Football clubs in Finland Bandy clubs in Finland Association football clubs established in 1906 Bandy clubs established in 1906 Sport in Turku 1906 establishments in Finland {{Finland-sport-stub