Jamie Mackay Popular Books

Jamie Mackay Biography & Facts

Malmö Fotbollförening (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈmâlːmøː ˈfûːtbɔlːfœˌreːnɪŋ]), commonly known as Malmö FF, Malmö, or MFF, is a professional football club and the most successful football club in Sweden in terms of domestic trophies won. Formed in 1910 and affiliated with the Scania Football Association, Malmö FF is based at Eleda Stadion in Malmö, Scania. The club has won a record 23 Swedish championship titles and the most national cup titles with 15. Malmö FF won its first Championship in 1944. The powerhouse of Swedish football in recent years, Malmö FF also saw glory in the 1970s, winning five Swedish championships and four Svenska Cupen titles. Malmö FF remains the only club from the Nordic countries to have reached the final of the European Cup, the predecessor of the UEFA Champions League. Malmö FF was runner-up in the 1979 European Champions Cup final, which they lost 1–0 to English club Nottingham Forest. For this feat, Malmö FF was awarded the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal. Malmö FF is also the only Nordic club to have been represented at the Intercontinental Cup (succeeded by FIFA Club World Cup) in which they competed for the 1979 title. Malmö FF is the leader of the overall Allsvenskan table called maratontabellen, where they are the club that holds both the record of scoring the most goals as well as the record of winning the most matches. The club colours, reflected in their crest and kit, are sky blue and white, with sky blue shirts, white shorts and sky blue socks being the club's traditional kit colours. The main rivals of the club are fellow regional rivals Helsingborg, historical domestic rival IFK Göteborg and historically local Division 2 Södra Götaland side IFK Malmö. The MFF Support are their official fan club. The club name is literally translated into English as the "Malmö Football Association". History Early years The club arose from a municipal initiative in 1905 to encourage young people in Malmö to play organised football. One of the youth teams, the Bollklubben Idrott, also known simply as BK Idrott, was a predecessor to the Malmö FF. BK Idrott joined the newly created football department of the IFK Malmö in 1909, but soon left because of issues between the two clubs. On 24 February 1910 the 19 members of the BK Idrott founded the Malmö FF; the first chairman was Werner Mårtensson. The club spent its first ten years in local and regional divisions as there was no official national league competition, playing the majority of their matches in the city division called the Malmömästerskapen. They also competed in regional competitions in Scania, and played matches against Danish clubs. In 1916 the Malmö FF reached the final of the Scanian regional competition (Distriktsmästerskapen) for the first time, playing against rival the Helsingborgs IF but losing 3–4. The club defeated local rival the IFK Malmö three times during the season, and thus earned the unofficial but much desired title of Malmö's best football club. In 1917 the Malmö FF competed for the first time in the Svenska Mästerskapet, a cup tournament for the title of Swedish champions, but lost their first match in the second qualifying round 4–1 against the IFK Malmö. The club continued to play in the cup until 1922, reaching the quarter-finals in 1920 when they were knocked out by the Landskrona BoIS. The cup was eventually discontinued and the title of Swedish champions was given to the winners of the Allsvenskan which was first created for the 1924–25 season. In 1920 the Swedish Football Association invited Swedish football clubs to compete in official national competitions. Malmö FF earned a place in the Division 2 Sydsvenska Serien. They won this division in the first season, and were promoted to the Svenska Serien Västra, the highest level of competition in Sweden at the time. However, they were relegated after a single season, and found themselves back in the Sydsvenska Serien for nearly a decade until they again achieved promotion to the Allsvenskan, in 1931. First years in the Allsvenskan and early achievements The club achieved mid-table league positions for two seasons, but was relegated in 1934 as a penalty for breaking amateur regulations. The club had paid their players a small sum of money for each game. Although against the rules, this was common at the time; Malmö FF was the only club to show it in the accounting records. In addition to relegation to Division 2, the club suffered bans for the entire board of directors and twenty-six players. The version of events told by Malmö FF and local press suggests that local rival, IFK Malmö, had reported the violation to the Swedish Football Association. This belief has contributed to the longstanding competitive tensions between the clubs. The club made their way back to the Allsvenskan in 1937 after two seasons in the Division 2. In the same year Eric Persson was elected as chairman after being secretary since 1929, and held the position until 1974. Persson is regarded by club leaders and fans as the most important person in the club's history, as he turned the club professional in the 1970s. Under his leadership the club went from being titleless in 1937 to holding ten Swedish championships by the end of the 1974 season. In 1939 the club reached its highest position yet, third place in the Allsvenskan, nine points behind champions the IF Elfsborg. Malmö FF's first Swedish championship came in 1944, when the club won the penultimate game of the season against AIK before 36,000 spectators at the Råsunda. The last game of the season was won 7–0 against Halmstad BK. The following nine seasons, Malmö FF finished in the top three in the league. The club won the Swedish Championship in 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1953, and were runners-up in 1946, 1948 and 1952. The club also won the Svenska Cupen in 1944, 1946, 1947, 1951 and 1953, and finished as runners-up in 1945. Between 6 May 1949 and 1 June 1951, the team were unbeaten in 49 matches, of which 23 were an unbroken streak of victories. The club finished as runners-up in the Allsvenskan twice more, in 1956 and 1957. The following year the club left the Malmö IP for the Malmö Stadion, which had been built for the 1958 FIFA World Cup, and was to host the club for 50 years. In 1964 Malmö FF contracted Spanish manager Antonio Durán; this was the first of a series of changes that led to the most successful era in the club's history. Young talents such as Lars Granström and Bo Larsson emerged during the early 1960s and would prove to be crucial ingredients in the success that would come in the 1970s. The club finished second in 1964 but went on to win their sixth Swedish Championship in 1965, when Bo Larsson scored 28 goals to finish as the league's top goal scorer. The Malmö FF once again won the Allsvenskan in 1967, after a less successful year in 1966. The club's young players, as well as talents bought in from neighbouring clubs in Scania in 1967, became a team that consis.... Discover the Jamie Mackay popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jamie Mackay books.