Sture "Stöttan" Gillström (3 December 1908 – 28 January 1978) was a

Swedish 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

and

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 ...

player, known for representing

Hammarby IF Hammarby Idrottsförening ("Hammarby Sports Club"), commonly known as Hammarby IF or simply Hammarby ( or, especially locally, ), is a Swedish sports club located in Stockholm, with a number of member organizations active in a variety of differe ...

in all three sports.

Early life

Sture Gillström grew up in a working-class home in a southern part of

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

known as

Södermalm Södermalm, often shortened to just Söder, is a district and island in central Stockholm. Overview The district covers the large island of the same name (formerly called ''Åsön''). Although Södermalm usually is considered an island, wat ...

. He and his two siblings were raised by the mother, since the father died in the

1918 Spanish flu 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 ...

pandemic.

Athletic career

Football

He started to play football with the local club

as a youngster. On 2 August 1925, at the age of 16, Gillström debuted in the senior team, in the first fixture of the Division 2 campaign, and scored two goals as Hammarby won 3–2 against

Sundbybergs IK Sundbybergs IK is a Swedish football club located in Sundbyberg. Background Sundbybergs IK, (abbreviated as SIK), is a sports club based in Sundbyberg. The club currently has thirteen sections and around 3000 members catering for the sports of f ...

. Gillström established himself as an important offensive player in Hammarby, competing in the Swedish second tier, and was the club's top scorer during four seasons. In total, Gillström made 159 league appearances for Hammarby, scoring 72 goals, between 1925 and 1936. He enjoyed a brief stint at the

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 ...

club AIK, during the season of 1933–34. Back in Hammarby for the 1934–35 season, Gillström scored a hattrick on 5 May 1935 against Västerviks AIS and become the teams top scorer for the season with eight goals. After definitely leaving Hammarby in 1936, Gillström finished his playing career with Sundbyberg in the Swedish lower divisions.

Ice hockey

Gillström also played

and won two Swedish championships, in 1932 and 1933, with Hammarby, the club's first domestic titles.

Bandy

Gillström also showed promise as a bandy player, winning the Stockholm junior district championship in 1926 with Hammarby. As a player in the men's senior team, Gillström helped establish Hammarby among the top bandy clubs in Sweden at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s.

Personal life

Besides being a sportsman, Gillström worked as a

mechanical engineer Mechanical may refer to: Machine * Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement * Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations of ...

for

ASEA ''Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget'' (English translation: General Swedish Electrical Limited Company; Swedish abbreviation: ASEA) was a Swedish industrial company. History ASEA was founded in 1883 by Ludvig Fredholm in Västerås as ...

in both

and

Västerås Västerås ( , , ) is a city in central Sweden on the shore of Mälaren, Lake Mälaren in the province of Västmanland, west of Stockholm. The city had a population of 127,799 at the end of 2019, out of the municipal total of 154,049. Västerås ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gillstrom, Sture 1908 births 1978 deaths Association football midfielders Swedish football managers Hammarby Fotboll players AIK Fotboll players AIK IF players Allsvenskan players Swedish ice hockey players Hammarby Hockey (1921–2008) players Hammarby IF Bandy players Swedish bandy players Sportspeople from Stockholm Engineers from Stockholm Swedish footballers