Allmänna Idrottsklubben (usually referred to as just AIK) – located in Solna, a municipality in Stockholm County bordering to Stockholm City Centre – is one of the oldest, largest and most successful sports clubs in Sweden. The club's achievements include Swedish championship titles in a slew of sports: football, ice hockey, bandy, handball, floorball, bowling, badminton, athletics and many other sports as well as Wimbledon championships in tennis.
The founding
The idea to start an athletic association began when the brothers Isidor and Paul Behrens were taking a walk through Hantverkargatan, in central Stockholm. They were walking pretty fast; and noticed that there were two other youngsters behind them who also walked quickly. The strangers tried to walk pass the Behrens’, so they had to speed up to keep the lead; but the strangers did the same. Finally all of them started to run in what now looked like an improvised competition. When Isidor and Paul were far away from the unknown youngsters, Isidor said that they should start an athletic association and compete with others.
So the brothers gathered their friends, who were strongly athletic interested, and held a meeting at Behrens' on February 15, 1891 on Biblioteksgatan 8, in central Stockholm. Isidor introduced his idea to everyone, and they liked it. Since the boys agreed that every thinkable sport should be practiced, they decided that “Allmänna Idrottsklubben” (The General Sports Club) would be a suitable name. The name also had other meanings: AIK allowed anybody to become member; and at this time many athletic clubs were limited for e.g. the military.
Active departments
External links
|
