Hammarby Idrottsförening, commonly known as Hammarby IF or simply Hammarby, is a Swedishsports club located in Stockholm, with a number of member organizations active in a variety of different sports. It was founded in 1889 as Hammarby Roddförening, but by 1897 the club had diversified and was participating in different sports, leading to the renaming to Hammarby IF. In 1999, the club was reorganized into a legal format referred to in Swedish as an alliansförening, with each of the club's departments becoming a separate legal entity cooperating under the "Hammarby IF" umbrella.
History
1889–1914: Growth from small rowing association to multi-sport club
On 10 April 1889, Hammarby Roddförening was established in Södermalm, a district in the Stockholm City Centre, with engineer Axel Robert Schönthal, the first chairman, being credited as the founder. Originally, it solely competed against other local clubs in the sport of rowing, with the races usually taking place on the watercourse Hammarby Sjö, which the club took its name from. The members exclusively consisted of young men from the working class, employed as industrial workers at one of the many factories in the Södermalm district. By 1897, the club had diversified into different sports following demands from its members, with the first other being athletics, and it was renamed Hammarby Idrottsförening, or Hammarby IF for short. The new multi-sport club was officially established on 7 March said year, with Carl Julius Sundholm taking the inaugural chairman position. The association launched its first team sport in 1905, the section Hammarby IF Bandy, thus becoming one of the first bandy clubs in Sweden.
1915–1957: Birth of the football section and golden years in hockey
The sporting ground Hammarby IP was built in Södermalm in 1915, officially opened on 15 September by Gustaf VI Adolf, by then the Crown Prince of Sweden. Due to a lack of football pitches in Stockholm, several other local clubs proposed to merge with Hammarby IF to get access to the stadium. An offer from Klara SK was accepted and a football department was established the same year, Hammarby IF Fotboll. In 1918, Hammarby also merged with Johanneshofs IF, a club from the neighbouring district Johanneshov. The club started playing ice hockey in 1921, with their team being made up by a group of bandy players during the very first matches. Hammarby IF Hockey would soon position itself as a giant in the early history of the sport in the country, playing in the top league from its inaugural season in 1922 until 1957. During that period, they were crowned domestic champions eight times.
Colours and badge
The club's colours are green and white, which is reflected in its crest and kit. When Hammarby Roddförening was founded in 1889, the club's crest consisted of a white flag with three green horizontal lines. They drew inspiration from two other competing rowing clubs in Stockholm that used two blue respectively two red lines on a white flag, but chose the colour green since it represented hope. The club eventually added a third stripe when it discovered that Göteborgs RF used a similar green-white flag with two stripes.
Kit
In 1915, Hammarby IF determined their kit to consist of a white shirt with the abbreviation "HIF" on its chest, white shorts and black socks. Following the merger with Johanneshofs IF in 1918, Hammarby changed its team apparel to Johanneshof's black-and-yellow striped shirts, blue shorts and black socks with yellow stripes. The first section to use the new kit was the bandy team, with the football section adopting it not much later. The club changed from blue pants to black in the 1960s. When the renowned footballer "Nacka" Skoglund rejoined Hammarby in 1964, he donated the club a set of black shorts because he thought the team's blue shorts looked awful. In 1978, 60 years after the merger with Johanneshof, Hammarby changed its home colours from black and yellow to white shirts, green shorts and white socks.
