Hamar AIL

Hamarkameratene is a professional association football team from Hamar, Norway. It was established in 1946 as a merger between Briskebyen Fotballag (established in 1918 as Freidig) and Hamar Arbeideridrettslag. In 1970, the team qualified for the First Division, and has since been in the top three flights of Norwegian football. They play their home games at Briskeby Arena, built by the club between 1934 and 1936.

Freidig was established on 10 August 1918 as a local team for Briskebyen in what was then the municipality of Vang. The prerequisite for joining the team was being able to pay for the football. At the time there was a severe lack of pitches in Hamar, and the club would to begin with often sneak into unused venues and play until they were chased by the groundskeeper. Freidig applied for entry into the regional series in 1926, but were only admitted after their second attempt, in 1927. At the time a club by the name of "Freidig" was already playing in the series, so the boys from Hamar were forced to rename their team. The natural choice was Briskebyen Fotballag (Briskebyen Football Team), Briskeby being the name of their neighborhood.

This forced it to formalize its pitch renting to have a single home venue. In 1928 and 1929, it played at Vangsbanen, from 1930 through 1933 at Ottestad bane, and from 1934 at Hamar stadion. The club was dissatisfied with this arrangement and started working with plans to establish its own venue. The decision to build the venue was taken by Briskebyen FL's annual meeting on 15 April 1934, with construction starting on 26 April. The venue opened on 28 June 1936, having cost 32,036 Norwegian krone (NOK).

In 1946, Briskebyen Fotballag joined up with the multimodal sports club Hamar Arbeideridrettslag (Hamar Workers' Sports Club) to form Hamarkameratene (literally meaning "Comrades of Hamar"). Because of the general reconciliation between bourgeois and workers' sports clubs, it was the wish of the municipality that all the sports clubs in Hamar merge, but in the end only these two clubs, who shared a common political viewpoint, were able to reach an agreement. The first manager was Roy Wright, a former Wolverhampton player. His experience from English football, however, did not benefit the club and he was considered a disappointment. The Czechoslovakian, Willem Cerveny, on the other hand, proved to be an influential asset to club and the development of a football culture in the region.

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