AIK

AIK

The crest of AIK
Full name	Allmänna idrottsklubben
Nicknames	Gnaget
Sport	association football, bandy, handball, ice hockey and others
Founded	15 February 1891 (1891-02-15)
Based in	Solna, Sweden

Allmänna Idrottsklubben (usually referred to as just AIK or (especially locally) Gnaget) is a professional sports club from , Sweden. Founded in 1891, at the downtown address of Biblioteksgatan 8 in the district of Norrmalm, the club is one of the biggest, and oldest, in Scandinavia. 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 and French Open in tennis (through Sven Davidson, Lennart Bergelin and Ulf Schmidt).

The idea to start an athletic association began when the brothers Isidor and Paul Behrens were taking a walk through Hantverkargatan, in central . They were walking pretty fast; and noticed that there were two other youngsters behind them who also walked quickly. The strangers tried to walk past 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 had strong athletic interest, and held a meeting at Behrens' on February 15, 1891 on Biblioteksgatan 8, in central . 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 a member; and at this time many athletic clubs were limited (e.g. the military).