Oskar Gösta Leonard "Knivsta" Sandberg (6 August 1932 – 27 April 2006) was a Swedish

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

, and

bandy Bandy is a winter sport and ball sport played by two team sport, teams wearing Ice skates#Bandy skates, 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 playin ...

player who is best remembered for representing Djurgårdens IF. He was capped 52 times for the national team in football, eight times in ice hockey, and three times in bandy. In 1991, he was voted "Djurgårdare of the century".

Football career

Svenska herrlandslaget i fotboll 28 maj 1961 mot Schweiz

Gösta Sandberg joined

Djurgården Djurgården ( or ) or, more officially, , is an island in central Stockholm, Sweden. Djurgården is home to historical buildings and monuments, museums, galleries, the amusement park Gröna Lund, the open-air museum Skansen, the small resident ...

before the 1951–52 Allsvenskan season and stayed with the team throughout the rest of his career, until 1966, winning four Swedish titles. During his debut season in Allsvenskan, he played all 22 matches and six goals. Except for a one-year spell in second tier Division 1, Sandberg played all his Djurgården football in

Allsvenskan Allsvenskan (; ), also known as Fotbollsallsvenskan (, ) is a professional association football league in Sweden and the highest level of the Swedish football league system. Founded in 1924, it operates on a system of promotion and relegatio ...

, and there making 298 appearances and scoring 70 goals. As of 2023, he is the player who have scored the most goals in Allsvenskan for Djurgårdens IF. A full international between 1951 and 1961, Sandberg won 52

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

and scored 10 goals for the Sweden national team and represented his country at the

1952 Summer Olympics The 1952 Summer Olympics (, ), officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad (, ) and commonly known as Helsinki 1952, were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1952 in Helsinki, Finland. After Japan declared in ...

where they won the bronze medal. He made his international debut in a friendly against

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

on 2 September 1951 In 1956, he received the Guldbollen as Sweden's best footballer of the year.

Ice hockey career

Sandberg first represented

IK Sirius Idrottsklubben Sirius, commonly known as IK Sirius or Sirius, is a Swedish Sport, sports club located in Uppsala. Today IK Sirius is active in bandy, floorball, and association football, football as an . History The sports club that became IK Sir ...

, then Spånga IS. Gösta Sandberg joined Djurgården from Spånga IS in 1957 and played with the team for six seasons in Division 1 until 1963, winning the Swedish title all six seasons. Sandberg won eight caps for the

Sweden national ice hockey team Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic country by both area ...

. Sandberg debuted for the national team on 23 November 1958 in a 8–2 win over

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, where he was part of line together with fellow Djurgården player Hans Mild and Uno Öhrlund of Västerås IK. He represented Sweden at the 1961 World Ice Hockey Championships where Sweden finished fourth, as well as the 1961

Ice Hockey European Championships The Ice Hockey European Championship was an annual ice hockey tournament for European countries associated with the International Ice Hockey Federation. A total of 66 European Champions were crowned in between the years 1910 and 1991. Independe ...

where Sweden finished third.

Bandy career

Gösta Sandberg played with Djurgårdens IF bandy team in the 1961–66 seasons. Sandberg represented the Sweden national bandy team a total of three times during his career.

Managerial career

During and after his active career, Gösta Sandberg managed IF Brommapojkarna 1959-61 and 1972–78, and

1967–71 and in 1979. Sandberg managed Djurgården's women's team in 1968.

Personal life

Sandberg's nickname derives from the town he was born and grew up in,

Knivsta Knivsta is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Knivsta Municipality, Uppsala County, Sweden with 20,133 inhabitants. It is known for being one of the safest areas in Sweden, consistently ranking among the top 5 safest municipalities ...

. Sandberg died on his way home from the derby between the archrivals AIK and Djurgårdens IF on 27 April 2006. Gösta Sandberg had four children and nine grandchildren. One son, Lars played

football for Djurgården, one daughter, Anna, represented IF Brommapojkarna, and two of his grandchildren, and Anna's children together with Brommapojkarna footballer and Swedish junior international Berndt Magnusson, Gustav Sandberg Magnusson and Anton Sandberg Magnusson, both played Allsvenskan football for IF Brommapojkarna.

Honours

Ice hockey

Djurgårdens IF * Swedish Champion: 1957–58, 1958–59, 1959–60, 1960–61, 1961–62, 1962–63 Sweden * Ice Hockey European Championship bronze: 1961

Football

Djurgårdens IF *

: 1954–55,

1959 Events January * January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the ...

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 – In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patria ...

1966 Events January * January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko. * January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo i ...

* Division 2 Svealand: 1961 Sweden *

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, then part of the King ...

bronze medal:

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Cairo Fire, Black Saturday in Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, ...

Individual * Guldbollen: 1956

References

External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sandberg, Gosta 1932 births 2006 deaths People from Knivsta Municipality Swedish men's footballers Swedish ice hockey players Swedish bandy players Sweden men's international footballers Djurgårdens IF Fotboll players Olympic footballers for Sweden Olympic bronze medalists for Sweden Footballers at the 1952 Summer Olympics Swedish football managers Djurgårdens IF Fotboll managers Djurgårdens IF Fotboll (women) managers IF Brommapojkarna managers Olympic medalists in football Allsvenskan players Djurgårdens IF Bandy players Djurgårdens IF (men's hockey) players Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for Sweden Men's association football forwards 20th-century Swedish sportsmen Sandberg family Footballers from Uppsala County