Sture "Stöttan" Gillström (3 December 1908 – 28 January 1978) 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, 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 differ ...

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, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

known as

Södermalm Södermalm, often shortened to just Söder, is the southern district of Stockholm City Centre. Overview The Södermalm district covers the island of the same name (formerly called ''Åsön''), which, however, is not fully separated from th ...

. He and his two siblings were raised by the mother, since the father died in the 1918 Spanish flu 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 ...

. 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 (; ), 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 ...

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 team's 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 o ...

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 ...

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 158,653, over 100,000 mo ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gillstrom, Sture 1908 births 1978 deaths Men's 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 Footballers from Stockholm Engineers from Stockholm Swedish men's footballers 20th-century Swedish sportsmen