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Sportaloosa International is a non-profit registry for spotted horses, based in Australia and New Zealand and serving members from around the world. The registry was established to promote athletic Appaloosa, Knabstrupper, and other spotted horses and ponies such as the Palouse Pony as sound, sane, spotted riding horses and to reward their achievements in open breed competition.
The club colours, reflected in their crest and kit, are sky blue and white. Formed on 24 February 1910, the club have won sixteen
Nottingham Forest.[4] This made them the only Swedish football club, as of 2011, to have reached the final of the competition, for which the team were awarded the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal.[5]
Malmö FF are an open member association and the annual general meeting is the highest policy-making body. The meeting approves the accounts and elects the chairman and board. Håkan Jeppsson is the current chairman, elected in 2010. Daily operations are run by a managing director who liaises with the chairman. With an equity of 78 million SEK (approximately €8.8 million) the club are the richest football club in Sweden as of 2011.[6]
The club are currently playing in Allsvenskan, where the season lasts from April to October. The club first won Allsvenskan in 1944.[7] Malmö FF were most successful during the 1970s, when they won five Swedish championships and four Svenska Cupen titles. The main rivals of the club are Helsingborgs IF, IFK Göteborg and historically IFK Malmö.[8]MFF Support is the official fan club of Malmö FF.[9] The club have also been featured in the media, including the football documentaries Blådårar 1 and Blådårar 2.
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, Bollklubben Idrott, also known simply as BK Idrott, was a predecessor to Malmö FF. BK Idrott joined the newly created football department of IFK Malmö in 1909, but soon left because of issues between the two clubs. On 24 February 1910 the 19 members of BK Idrott founded Malmö FF; the first chairman was Werner Mårtensson.[10][11]
The club spent their 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 Malmömästerskapen. They also competed in regional competitions in
In 1920 the Swedish Football Association invited Swedish football clubs to compete in official national competitions. Malmö FF earned a place in Division 2 Sydsvenska Serien. They won this division in the first season, and were promoted to 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 Sydsvenska Serien for nearly a decade until they again achieved promotion to Allsvenskan, in 1931.[15]
First years in Allsvenskan and early achievements
The club achieved mid-table league positions for two seasons, but they were 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 were the only club to show it in their 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 reported the violation to the Swedish Football Association. This belief has contributed to the longstanding competitive tensions between the clubs.[16][17][18]
The club made their way back to Allsvenskan in 1937 after two seasons in Division 2. In the same year
For the next 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 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.[21]
The club finished as runners-up in Allsvenskan twice more, in 1956 and 1957. The following year the club left Malmö IP for Malmö Stadion, which had been built for the 1958 FIFA World Cup, and was to host the club for the next 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. Malmö FF once again won 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 consistently finished in the top three in Allsvenskan.[22]
Successful 1970s, European Cup 1979, 1980s and 1990s
After finishing as runners-up in Allsvenskan for the final two years of the 1960s, Malmö FF started the most successful decade of their history with a Swedish Championship in 1970. The club won Allsvenskan in 1970, 1971, 1974, 1975 and 1977 as well as Svenska Cupen in 1976 and 1978. The 1977 Allsvenskan victory qualified the club for the
Olympiastadion in Munich against Nottingham Forest. Trevor Francis, who scored the only goal of the match, won it 1–0 for Forest. Nevertheless the 1979 European Cup run is the biggest success in the history of Malmö FF.[23] The team were given the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal the same year, awarded for the most significant Swedish sporting achievement of the year, for their achievement in the European Cup.[5]
Malmö Stadion, the home stadium for the club between 1958 and 2008
Much of the success during the 1970s was due to new tactics and training methods brought to the club by Englishman Bob Houghton, who managed the club between 1974 and 1980. Eric Persson was succeeded as chairman in 1974 by Hans Cavalli-Björkman. After the team performed respectably under managers Keith Blunt and Tord Grip in the early 1980s, Roy Hodgson took over in 1985. He led the club to two Swedish Championships in 1986 and 1988, and the club won Allsvenskan five years in a row between 1985 and 1989. At the time, the championship was decided by play-offs between the best teams after the end of the regular season; this arrangement was in place from 1982 until 1992. The club reached the play-off final four times between 1986 and 1989 but only managed to win the final twice. Apart from Allsvenskan and Swedish Championships, the club won Svenska Cupen in 1984, 1986 and 1989.[24]
Other than finishing as runners-up in Allsvenskan in 1996, the team did not excel in the 1990s, as the club failed to win Allsvenskan and Svenska Cupen throughout the entire decade. The 1990s ended with relegation from Allsvenskan in 1999. Hans Cavalli-Björkman was succeeded as chairman by