Gais Fotboll
Gais Fotboll
When the Allsvenskan entered its first season in 1924/1925, Gais Fotboll was involved and won the league with 38 points, two points ahead of IFK Gothenburg. The team had lost a single match throughout the season (against IFK) and had only conceded 16 goals. Tragically, hill Konrad Hirsch died after the autumn season at just 24 years old. He was replaced by Herbert Lundgren (from Lundby) who together with Gunnar Zacharoff would form the back pair during the rest of the 20s. Both Lundgren and Zacharoff were also important guarantors for the series winners in 1927 and 1931 and until 1935 the team finished at least in fifth place. The Allsvenskan victories in 1925 and 1927 are not counted as an official Swedish Championship gold in part because the Swedish Football Association organized the official championship in football as a cup tournament until 1925. Only since the 1930/31 season is the Allsvenskan champion also the winner of the Swedish Championship gold. Thus, the Allsvenskan victory in 1931 is counted as Gai’s first Swedish Championship gold in the Allsvenskan.
During the first half of the 1930s, however, several big stars left the team such as Wenzel, Holmberg, “Abben” Olsson, Zacharoff and Lundgren at the same time as the center star “Long-John” Nilsson disappeared to AIK, just like the national team player “Carnera” Andersson. In 1938, Gais Fotboll left the Allsvenskan and spent three years in Division II before the team managed to get to the Allsvenskan again and ended the season 1941/42 with a sensational second place behind IFK Gothenburg. The new stars in the team were the flexible “Jack” Jakobsson together with left back Folke Lind and defender Sixten “Tjärpapp” Rosenqvist. Folke Lind also became a hero in 1942 when he in the cup final against Elfsborg nodded in the winning goal after a concussion he had received in the same match. In the late 1940s, Willy Wolff, suspected of having a background as a Nazi and with unclear nationality, became the coach of Gais Fotboll. He considered that the team was in poor condition and thus advocated hard cardio training. During his time, new stars emerged, such as right-hander Egon “Atom-Egon” Johnsson and center-half Gunnar Johansson, who also got to play the World Cup in Brazil. Gaisfc was facing a promising future but everything fell apart when Wolff left Sweden and sold Johnsson and Johansson to France. “Tjärpapp” Rosenkvist took over as coach and managed to win the Swedish Championship gold in 1954 with players like Hasse Olsson and the shooting king Karl-Alfred Jakobsson. They won after a very even series where Helsingborg and Degerfors only had one point less at the end of the season.
