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between Stockholm teams, it was the exception rather than the rule (and remained
the case until the professionalization of the sport paved the way for purchasing
players from other teams). By the 1930s AIK had become Stockholm’s most
successful team, drawing crowds that tested the capacity of the Stockholm Stadium.
Spurred by its own success and the rapid rise of soccer’s popularity in Sweden, in
cooperation with the Swedish soccer organization, the club initiated construction of
a new stadium in Råsunda in 1936. AIK moved its entire organization to Råsunda
when the stadium was completed, in time for the 1937/38 season, and the team won
the Swedish championship, outclassing its competitors on its new home pitch. Six
years later, the town of Solna was incorporated and AIK became increasingly identi-
fied as a Stockholm team from Solna. The club flag and the town’s flag were created
at the same time, look much the same and are often seen flying side by side at
matches and other events. The date 1891 remains on the AIK flag and logo, making
it easy to forget that forty years passed before AIK became Solna’s home team.
There are several complex developments that account for the historical path of the
club from its origins in the popular culture and working-class base of amateur sport
prior to the turn of the twentieth century. Against a backdrop of urbanization and
industrialization, sport combined conservative values with the democratic ideal of
competition, and became a bridge to new social structures and the building of new
masculine identities. A central aspect of this was the channel sport provided for the
rise of local patriotism, which in turn was easily expanded and mobilized as nation-
alism in the context of international competitions and world cup tournaments.
Another key aspect of the complex mix was the increasing professionalization and
commercialization of sport. The organizations of clubs on an amateur basis with
significant civic support changed as the composition of the clubs’ boards and steering
committees progressed from their previous base in popular movements to include
representatives from the world of business and finance.
Early in 1999, Solna Centre hosted an event in front of the town hall that brought
together this history and AIK’s victory in the Swedish championship play-offs. The
crowd of visitors that afternoon included people of all ages, and although men with
their young sons (eager to get autographs) seemed to dominate, there were also clus-
ters of young women in their twenties, families with small children and elderly men
in their eighties, all wearing the team colours, black and gold. Solna Centre, across
from the home stadium, was the self-evident location to celebrate the team’s victory.
The crowd gathered in front of the platform heard speeches by the coach and key
players, lead by a presenter who carried on an enthusiastic dialogue with the team and
the crowd. He reminded everyone that the first game of the season was just a few
weeks away, and ‘You’ll all be there?!’ The crowd shouted its response in the affirma-
tive. The team’s ‘gold video’ was for sale from the stage and at several shops throughout
the mall. The team then divided into two groups and signed autographs and answered
questions from the fans who lined up outside McDonald’s and one of the sports shops.
In another sports shop, a photographer had set up a simple studio where fans could
pull on a football shirt in their size and be photographed next to the trophy.

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