The Sporting Movement

Såpebrukslyckan

The area north of Tivolitorget was known as Såpebrukslyckan, and this is where Halmstad’s sporting history began in the late 19th century.

The name comes from the soapworks that once stood here and closed in 1840.

A club called Halmstads Bollklubb played football here and, in 1890, faced Copenhagen’s Akademie Boldklub in the first international football match in Sweden.

In 1902, Såpebrukslyckan was laid out as a sports ground. It was a very simple facility. The uneven, tussocky field was marked out with chalk for running tracks and areas for jumping and throwing events. A grandstand was built along one of the long sides, and the whole area was enclosed by ropes. Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna trained in athletics here and organised competitions.

When the Grammar School opened in 1906, the athletes were left without a place to train. Anders Grahm, the tenant farmer at Patrikshills Farm, came to their aid by making land on the farm available. This led to the establishment of Södra idrottsplatsen, which was probably located north of what is now Patrikshillsvägen.

A photograph from 1908 shows a football match in progress, but there must also have been running tracks, as a district championship in athletics was held there.

Then Christian August Freckman came to the rescue. A great supporter of sport, he believed it played an important role in educating and developing young people. He offered to build a sports ground at his own expense at Sommarlust in Furet, the forerunner of Folkparken.

Work began during the winter of 1908, when a large number of trees were felled on the site of what is now the car park. During the spring, the sports ground was completed with running tracks and facilities for jumping and throwing, as well as a football pitch. A tennis court was also built among the trees.

Several of Sweden’s leading athletes took part in the sporting competitions. The best known was Eric Lemming, a javelin gold medallist at three Olympic Games and a world record holder. Other prominent competitors included marathon runner Torild Olsson and pentathlete Hugo Wieslander.

At Sommarlust, Eric Lemming set a world record for the left-handed javelin throw, with a distance of 42.02 metres.

The earthworks were a major undertaking. Large quantities of soil had to be moved to create the pitches, tracks and terraces. The football pitch was laid out to the highest standards, using top-quality topsoil. The athletics tracks were constructed with steam-engine slag as the foundation and a layer of cinders on the surface. The tennis courts were built in the same way as the path at Högelid, using stone dust, gravel and soil, making them both durable and as hard as cement. All the work was carried out by relief workers, without the aid of any major machinery.

When the sports ground was completed in July 1922, it covered 41,000 square metres. The entrance was built of handmade brick, with trellises and climbing plants around the pillars bringing the brickwork to life. The gates were forged by local craftsmen, as were the two lanterns outside, donated by directors Pehr Berggren and Axel Nordlöf.

The sports ground was officially inaugurated on 30 July 1922 by His Royal Highness Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf. Many considered the event the largest gathering held in the town since the 1912 exhibition.

There were 12,000 spectators inside the sports ground, while crowds stood packed around the fence outside. Several thousand more people had gathered on the slopes of Galgberget, where they could watch the spectacle from a distance.

The inauguration was a grand affair. The Halland Regiment’s band gave a concert and sounded fanfares. More than 100 athletes from all over Sweden marched onto the field carrying banners and lined up in front of the main stand, where the Crown Prince was seated.

Photo from Bildstationen.

Halmstad Gymnastics and Athletics Club

As early as 1895, there was an association of young men in the town called Halmstads Gymnastik- och Atletklubb (Halmstad Gymnastics and Athletics Club). The club remained active into the early 20th century. Among its members, and also serving on its governing body, was Anders Malmberg, whose day job was delivering beer by horse and cart for Östra Brewery.

Isak Antonius Johansson

In 1903, another muscular man appeared on the scene and challenged Anders Malmberg’s reputation as the town’s strongest weightlifter and wrestler. His name was Isak Antonius Johansson, born in Veinge in 1878. During his time in Halmstad, he was given the stage name “Starke Isak” (“Strong Isak”), and made a living as a part-time firefighter.

But Halmstad proved too small for Isak Johansson. He emigrated to America, where he joined the ranks of professional wrestlers and strongmen who toured the country. There he was given the stage name “The Terrible Swede”.

Albert J Carlsson

During the 1912 Arts and Industrial Exhibition, a wrestling arena was built at Sommarlust, and Isak Johansson returned to Halmstad from America. After Isak Johansson defeated Otto Andersson, who was also a professional wrestler in America, Isak was challenged by Albert J. Carlsson from Kärleken, who had likewise worked as a professional wrestler in America.

“Cyclone” Carlsson offered his opponent Isak Jonsson 100 kronor if he failed to pin him twice within an hour.

At the turn of the century, Halmstad and IFK Halmstad’s great athlete was gymnastics instructor Hjalmar Mellander. He joined Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna in 1899 and featured prominently in the prize lists at the championships held at Såpebrukslyckan in 1902. He also enjoyed considerable success in competitions at various venues around the country.

After failing his student examination in 1902, he travelled to England, where he began working at a gymnastics institute in Liverpool while studying at the university there. He graduated six years later.

Every year, he returned to Halmstad to compete for IFK Halmstad in major national competitions. He competed in running, jumping and throwing events.

When an invitation to the 1906 Olympic Games in Athens arrived, Hjalmar Mellander was selected to represent Sweden. He won the gold medal in the pentathlon and was also awarded an honorary prize by the King of Greece. At these Games, Sweden won its first Olympic gold medals. A committee subsequently named him “the athlete at the Games who came closest to the ideals of the ancient Greeks”.

Bank director Axel Jonason, who was chairman of Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna in 1909–1910 and was himself a talented athlete, wrote the following about Hjalmar Mellander:

“Several healthy young men lived in Väster 87, and it was through them that I first came into contact with athletics, represented by Hjalmar Mellander. He was born in 1880 and was a big, strong man, with an irresistible urge to let us younger boys feel the strength of his grip whenever we came within reach. Hjalmar and a few like-minded friends held regular athletics training sessions in a meadow nearby.”

Interest in swimming instruction was revived in 1858, when Halmstad Swimming Club was founded, with County Governor Lewenhaupt as its chairman. The qualifying test for the Magister title in long-distance swimming consisted of swimming from the school to Laxön and back.

“On 22 August 1858, the ceremony took place in the most glorious weather, with a couple of thousand spectators. After completing their tests, the magistri and candidates were crowned with wreaths by County Governor Lewenhaupt, accompanied by a cannon salute.”

Halmstad Swimming Club was revived and reorganised in 1912, and the football clubs HBK and IS Halmia, founded in the 1910s, also established swimming sections.

The swimming qualification ceremonies were initially held at Östra Kallbadhuset and later at the mouth of the River Nissan. Club competitions between HBK and Halmia were organised, and in 1919 the first Halland Championships were held at Östra Kallbadhuset. In this competition, Edgard Lindblad won the 100-metre freestyle.

Brottet – Swimming Stadium

The stone quarry at Västra Stranden was mainly created in connection with the construction of the harbour breakwaters at the beginning of the 20th century. Once abandoned, the water-filled quarries were also used by some of the local “Väster boys” for swimming practice. The site also had a long history as a bathing spot, dating back to the “sea-bathing establishment” (saltsjöbadsinrättningen) founded as a company in 1816. It had long since disappeared, but the so-called Tillmans Brygga jetty remained on the site.

HBK’s swimming section installed a diving board and some basic facilities, including removable starting and turning platforms for the 50-metre course. Swimming activities began here in 1922.

In 1923, HBK was granted a lease on Brottet, initially paying just one krona a year in rent.

In 1932, Simklubben Laxen was founded. Laxen had ambitious plans for Brottet. The club wanted to build a wall across the entire pool, with a diving platform on top. Part of the bottom would be blasted away, and a turning platform would be built. The club raised funds, and the planned facilities were completed in 1935.

The first tennis courts in Halmstad were built by local tennis enthusiasts towards the end of the 19th century.

In the 1890s, Carl Johan Fredrikson visited Marstrand on a couple of occasions, where he saw King Oscar II playing tennis. Inspired by this, he built a tennis court beside Halmstad Valskvarn. He later recalled that the court “cost me almost nothing, as the mill workers brought soil and clay to the site and then rolled and levelled it.”

Factory owner Alfred Wallberg also built a tennis court towards the end of the 19th century situated beside his villa Ekebo on the slope leading up towards Högelid.

Badhusparken

For a few years around 1908–1910, tennis was played in Badhusparken on a cinder court just north of the old public baths, roughly where Actic and the old swimming hall now stand.

The court was not enclosed, so the balls – which were red in those days – would occasionally fly well beyond the court. Ball boys would chase after them and, before long, began playing on the court themselves, using rather basic rackets and “found” balls. In some cases, their interest in tennis stayed with them throughout their lives.

For its time, the standard of tennis played there was quite good. Among those who played were three Österlund sisters and a number of officers from the Royal Halland Regiment, including Lieutenants Pripp and Ahrberg, whom I remember.

During the spring of 1909, the sports ground at Sommarlust was completed, including a tennis court among the trees.

Örjans Vall 1922
The two tennis courts were constructed in the same way as the path at Högelid, using stone dust, gravel and soil. This was intended to make them both durable and as hard as cement, while keeping costs low.

On 23 January 1935, members of the Halmstad Tennis Hall building association were called to a meeting at Hotel Svea. By then, Yngve Schéle, who was the driving force behind the project, had persuaded 30 people to subscribe for shares in the hall. This meant that the construction plans had been financially secured.

The construction firm Selfvén & Hedenberg built the hall at a cost of SEK 56,300. Heating, plumbing, electrical work and painting were additional expenses, bringing the total extra cost to SEK 21,000.

In May 1889, Hallandsposten reported:
“A ball games club following the English model was formed here yesterday and already has around twenty young men taking part. The club holds practice sessions at Tivolitorget on wo evenings a week.”
Hallandsposten also reported that during the winter months, this association functioned as a gymnastics club.

In 1892, Halmstads Gymnastikförening was founded. The driving force behind its establishment was watchmaker Herman Stenbäck, who also became its chairman. The purpose of the gymnastics association was set out in Article 1 of its statutes:

“The purpose of the association is to promote interest in and proficiency in gymnastics and other men’s sports, and through regular exercises in accordance with Ling’s system to strengthen and develop the human body.”

The Rowing Club and Gymnastics Association evidently had much in common, and on 16 May 1896 a meeting was held at Hotel Svea, chaired by Sergeant K. A. Wassenius. The two associations were merged into one, which was given the name Halmstads Gymnastik- och Roddförening.

A club called Halmstads Bollklubb invited the Danish Akademisk Boldklub (AB) to a football match at Såpebrukslyckan on 14 September 1890. It was probably one of the first football matches played in Halmstad and the first international football match in Sweden. No common rules had yet been established, and the surprised Danish visitors noted that the Swedes were allowed, among other things, to stop the ball with their hands. Despite this advantage, the visitors won 3–0. A month later, another Danish team came to Halmstad when Köbenhavns Boldklub paid a visit.

In 1895, schoolboys at grammar schools around the country began forming Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna (IFK) clubs, and Halmstad was no exception. The association took part in several sports, including football.

When the Grammar School was opened in 1906, the athletes at Såpebrukslyckan were left without a sports ground. The tenant farmer at Patrikshills farm, Anders Grahm, then made land on the farm’s property available for them. This led to the establishment of Södra idrottsplatsen, which was probably located north of what is now Patrikshillsvägen.

A photograph from 1908 shows a football match in progress, but there must also have been running tracks, as a district championship was held there that year.

In 1909, Halmstad’s first proper sports ground was inaugurated at Sommarlust. At his own expense, he added a football pitch and running tracks to his place of entertainment.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the field at Karl XI väg and Stenvinkelsgatan was turned into a football pitch known as Wasaplanen. The local team BK Wasa soon disappeared, and in 1914 a group of young men from the western parts of the town formed Halmstads Bollklubb. They continued to play at Wasaplanen, a bumpy pitch with no changing rooms.

Fylgia 1907

A team from Kärleken that played its matches at Sparkushålan, the meadow north of the regiment where I 16’s obstacle course was later located.

Seated from left: Hilding Bengtsson, Johan Johansson, August Bengtsson.

Standing from left: Levin Andersson, Erik Andersson, John Persson, Karl Petter Pettersson, Einar Rehngren, Edvin Tholin, Georg Olsson and Edvin Pettersson.