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 in the Bispebjerg district of

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

, 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 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 organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...

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

team handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball, Olympic handball or indoor handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a Handball goalkeeper, goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands ...

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...

, and

table tennis Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the Tennis court, court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of ...

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

History

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

Akademisk Boldklub Akademisk Boldklub Gladsaxe (AB) is a Denmark, Danish professional football (soccer), 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 ...

. When the four biggest teams decided to quit the Copenhagen Football Association, KFUM was one of the replacement teams in the 1911 Copenhagen Football Championship.p. 10
/ref> 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 () is a professional association football league for men and the third division in Denmark. It is organised by the Divisionsforeningen on behalf of the Danish Football Association (Danish FA; DBU) as part of the nation-wide Da ...

. During the

Occupation of Denmark At the outset of World War II in September 1939, Denmark declared itself Neutral countries in World War II, neutral, but that neutrality did not prevent Nazi Germany from Military occupation, occupying the country soon after the outbreak of ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, KFUM was included in the top-flight Danish football championship. 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 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 for ...

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

relegated Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

straight back into the 2nd Division. KFUM played on in the 2nd and Danish 3rd Division. 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 ''Østerfæ ...

, a

common Common may refer to: As an Irish surname, it is anglicised from Irish Gaelic surname Ó Comáin. Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge 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, Honorary Fellowship of the American Institute of Architects, Hon. FAIA (; 11 February 1902 – 24 March 1971) was a Danish architect and furniture designer. He is remembered for his contribution to functionalism (architec ...

. KFUM was one of several small Copenhagen clubs who founded the Alliancen association. Alliancen arranged exhibition games to earn spectator entrance fees, and was in direct competition with the high-profile Stævnet 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, 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