This blog is named after a Danish physicist, Nobel laureate, and erstwhile goalkeeper Niels Bohr. Bohr won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922 for pioneering work on atomic structure, positing that atoms orbiting a nucleus had discrete energetic properties and could jump between orbits. He was also a footballer, though less successful than his brother Harald, who represented Denmark at the 1908 Olympics as a right-back. Niels’ son Ernest was also an Olympian, playing field hockey at the 1948 London Olympics. Both Bohr brothers played together in the University sports club team, known as Akademisk Boldklub, which had teams for cricket, handball, and basketball, as well as football. The initial requirement for membership was simply taking a degree at the University of Copenhagen and the club were, like some university based clubs in England, dominant in the Danish league system, winning the championship in 1919 and 1921, some six years after the league’s inception. It has also won the league in ’37, ’43, ’45, ’47, ’51, ’52, and ’67. However, the club was relegated soon after this last success, and, despite a period in the 1990s when the club played in the Superliga, and even won the Danish League Cup in the 1998/1999 season and finished in third place in that season and the following one, professionalisation of Danish football has hit the club hard. In 2012 the club was only saved from bankruptcy after a bailout from the Gladsaxe municipal council.

This is, surely, the most hipster football photo ever.

The curious history of the club is no doubt one of its systemic problems: since its foundation in 1889, AB has always been seen as a sporting representation of an academic elitism and not, therefore, a ‘proper’ football club with roots in the working class society of a local area. Having said that, it is a club with a strong sense of its own identity, perhaps because of this oppositional attitude. When I visited this Sunday, November 17^th, and watched the home derby against neighbouring suburb Brønsøj, there were around eight hundred fans (perhaps sixty-eighty of whom were there to cheer on Brønsøj); the ground, however, has a capacity of 13,200, though this probably includes the tumbledown terraces at each of the stadium. The support was considered, not too vociferous, and it felt very much like the stereotype of a pleasant family club. A small group of ultras dutifully put up various banners at the terrace end in an echo of Italian fan culture, and a number waving large flags occupied part of the west stand adjacent to the Brønsøj fans.

Floodlit matches are beautiful.

The match itself was not the most engaging game I have ever been to, though second division, semi-professional football in Denmark is not renowned for its scintillating style and verve. AB played with a 4-4-2 that moved quite flexibly to a 4-1-4-1 when not in possession, with Ayo Simon Okosun, a very poor man’s Patrick Viera, seemingly incapable of winning a header despite being nearly six foot five, dropping back to screen. Younes Namli was quick and direct but couldn’t cross very well and goalkeeper Kim Drejs looked, frankly, weedy. The defence were solid though, full-back and captain Emil Farver strong in the challenge and Mads Ibenfeldt and Kasper Kristensen at centre-back both strong and anticipatory. The stand-out player, perhaps unsurprisingly, was central midfielder Andreas Bæs, on loan from FC København, who was snappy in defence and astute with possession. For Brønsøj, both midfielder Jesper Christjansen and left-back Kenneth Bjergsted were very impressive; the latter especially was very quick into the challenge, strong in the air, and good on the overlap. Emil Berggren scored a great opening goal for Brønsøj, drifting across from the right and shaking off two fairly weak challenges before shooting high and right past the wobbly Drejs. Substitute Marc Nygaard, ex of QPR and Brescia, now 37 and playing largely for fun, headed an equalizer a minute later, finally converting some of the good aerial chances created by AB. Both teams seemed to settle and played out the final 10 minutes without really going for it. The result leaves AB in 11^th place out of 12, their rivals two places and three points above them.

The blocks of Høje Gladsaxe tower over the stadium.

After the game, I managed to grab AB’s sporting director John Møller for a quick chat. I asked him about what state the club was in following the upheavals of the pervious season. He was cautiously optimistic, as you might expect, but was very quick to point out the difficult financial realities for any Danish team not operating with the possibility of Champions League or Europa League windfalls. Bluntly put, said John, it is about “making sure we don’t spend more than what comes in”. He explained that the TV money available in Danish football is pretty paltry and that trickle-down payments are staggered across the course of a season. Sadly, like any small team, a key area of revenue is player sales, though, as John pointed out, this can have a catastrophic effect on the team. At the end of last season, AB sold Thomas Juel-Nielsen to Norweigan team Sandfjørd, and lost three stand-out players to the Danish Superliga: Oliver Lund to FC Vestsjælland, Lukas Lerager to Viborg FF, and, perhaps worst, Danish U-21 star Bassel Jradi to FC Nordsjælland. Jradi previously trialed at Blackburn Rovers and is also a successful example of integration, being a first generation child of Lebanese immigrants. Any team that loses four key players will suffer, and John was at pains to explain that AB is still very much in a period of transition, both on and off the field. To him, it is perhaps an awareness of the club’s historical antecedent as an offshoot of the University of Copenhagen that heralds the greatest hope. All first team players that are eligible are also studying for degrees, and not simply in sports science. Training is arranged around this, which also allows older members of the squad to have second jobs. The long-term vision for the club sees this affiliation with learning, a recognition that football might not work as a career, as central to convincing the parents of aspirant footballers in the area to bring their children to the AB youth set-up. The team still largely recruits from the Gladsaxe area, a largely middle-class suburb though with a skyline dominated by the five large towers blocks that make up the social housing of Høje Gladsaxe; these blocks overlook the stadium itself and have provided players like Semere Haile, Saleem Nanji, and the impressive Younes Namli, all current first team squad members. This is a club that can only have a future by recognizing its relationship with the community that surrounds it. Players like Nicolai Jørgensen, currently on loan at FC København from Bayer Leverkusen, who is an elegant striker and a product of the AB youth system, are the future of the team both on and off the pitch, providing sporting stability in the Danish 1^st Division and a source of revenue when they outgrow the side.

Empty terrace; ultras banners.

This ethos of community was highlighted when I visited, the following day, the wonderful Democratic Coffee, a coffee shop nestled alongside the atrium of Copenhagen’s central library. I was proudly sporting my newly acquired AB beanie and Oliver, the urbane owner of Democratic, spluttered into his coffee when he saw it. It turned out that he had played for AB as a youngster, both in the cricket team and at youth level for the football club, before turning his attention elsewhere. He was pushed towards the club by his Anglophile father, who wanted him to play cricket; he found himself in a team composed otherwise of the children of immigrant parents from the blocks of Høje Gladsaxe, some of whom also played football. He has fond memories of the club and its ability to provide a focal point for various parts of the community in Gladsaxe. This, more than anything, was the sense I took away from my visit. Akademisk Boldklub is trying to build a team rooted in their local community, partly, perhaps largely, because of economic necessity, but also because it matters, because of a deeply held belief that a football club, especially one so helped out by the local council, should be rooted where it lives. It is a lesson worth heeding.

Thanks are due to Casper Jensen of AB for helping fix things up, John Møller for his time, and Jennifer Cownie for taking the featured image for this article, and putting up with a visit to a football match for the first, but hopefully not the last, time.