Club & Town: AIK
Inhabitants of the town (Stockholm): 2 400 000
Region: Stockholm
League: 1st league
Founded: 1891
Stadium: Friends Arena (50 000)
Average crowd: 25 275
Stand: Norra Stå
Colours: Black and yellow
Supporter associations: Black Army 1981, Allmänna Supporterklubben
Active scene:
Ultras: Ultras Nord 2002 with youth group YoUNgsters, Sol Invictus 2004
H-groups: Firman Boys 1991 and youth group AIK Youth Squad
Other groups: Södra Tifo 2008, 515
Friends: Ultras Nord to the Hannover scene, especially West Hannover. Also some contacts to Dinamo Zagreb. Former friendship with Poptown Hamburg. Sol Invictus strong contacts with Biris Norte. Firman Boys older generation with contacts to Leeds.
Enemies: Djurgården, Hammarby, IFK Göteborg, Malmö
History:
One of the big five in Sweden, They really like the ”most hated club” moniker and it is probably true. Black Army was founded in 1981 and was the original group, and then FB formed 10 years later as a hool group. The Ultras scene arrived officially in 2002 with UN, but there were already tifos ahead of this time. The club has always been a magnet for controversy, partly thanks to some notorious incidents of hools in the 90s. Hools have always had quite a bit of power in the club management also, which is not very common in Sweden. Massive rivalries especially with the other two Stockholm clubs and IFK Göteborg.
AIK have north and west Stockholm as their home turf. They have the weird dynamic of sympathizers and having probably the most fans with foreign background. They are one of the teams with the highest average attendance in Sweden. I would say that their style of support is more in line with for example the Polish and German scenes (everyone dressed in black, highly synchronized) compared to the other Stockholm teams.
UN friendship with Poptown stopped due to political reasons, and they instead became friends with groups at H96. Nevertheless, the active groups manage to stay fairly united. Still definitely one of the best scenes in the country, perhaps the number one depending on who you ask.
Club & Town: Djurgården
Inhabitants of the town (Stockholm): 2 400 000
Region: Stockholm
League: 1st league
Founded: 1891
Stadium: Tele2 Arena (30 000)
Average crowd: 19 587
Stand: Sofialäktaren
Colours: Blue, yellow, and red
Supporter associations: Järnkaminerna 1981
Active scene:
Ultras: Ultra Caos Stockholm 2003 with youth group Caos Kids 2009 and other sub-groups, Långa Gatan Stockholm 2019
Hools: Djurgårdens Fina Grabbar with youth group Djurgårdens Yngsta, Natural Selection Stockholm
Other groups: Lemon Gate, Sofialäktaren (as an umbrella group for active supporters), some others in the seated sections
Friends: UCS with a strong friendship to VfL Osnabrück/Violet Crew. Some personal contacts to other teams
Enemies: AIK, Hammarby, IFK Göteborg, Malmö, Helsingborg
History:
Another of the big five teams and also one of three big Stockholm teams. Järnkaminerna was founded as Blue Saints in 1981, and DFG was founded as Järngänget in the beginning of the 90’s. NSS broke away from DFG a few years back due to internal issues but are not as active nowadays. Ultras culture arrived quite late at DIF. The first embryo of ultras culture was Ultras Stockholm which was established as a tifo group in the late 90s. They were replaced by UCS in 2003 who were mainly a group of kids during their first few years, when the casual style was still dominant. Another tifo group, Fabriken, was more important during the 00’s, but eventually they disbanded. Nowadays UCS are the unquestioned dominant group and one of the largest ones in Sweden.
DIF has always had a British style to their support in comparison to the other Stockholm teams. The casual culture used to be really strong and they still don’t use a drum (although it seems inevitable that the ultras will introduce one sooner rather than later). Compared to AIK and Hammarby their number of fans is usually smaller (but not by much), but they are very good at mobilizing for large-scale away trips, and have done well in Europe.
Djurgården don’t really have a specific geographical base unlike AIK and especially Hammarby, they are instead fairly evenly spread out across town, with their strongest areas being in the northeast and southeast. The traditional main rivalry is with AIK but they are groundsharing with Hammarby since 2013, and that rivalry is very infected with unfair clashes on normal fans not being uncommon. They also have a rivalry with Helsingborg after a normal Djurgården fan died following a game in 2014. They are stereotyped as an upper-class club since they were founded in the posh part of Stockholm, but this stereotype isn’t really based in reality. On the street they are slightly behind Hammarby and AIK at the moment, but anyone can beat anyone on a good day. They are great at using pyro, and are definitely one of the top scenes in Sweden and Scandinavia in general.
Club & Town: Hammarby
Inhabitants of the town (Stockholm): 2 400 000
Region: Stockholm
League: 1st league
Founded: 1889
Stadium: Tele2 Arena (30 000)
Average crowd: 26 372
Stand: Norra övre, Norra nedre
Colours: Green and white
Supporter associations: Bajen Fans 1981
Active scene:
Ultras: Hammarby Ultras 1993, Ultra Boys 1999, E1 Ultras 2013, Söder Bröder 1998
Hools: Kompisgänget Bajen, Brödraförbandet
Other groups: Hammarbykollektivet, Soul Boys, Bajen Allez, Bara Bajare 1996, 12YS, Bajengrottan, others…
Friends: Plenty of contacts – the strongest of which is to Rapid Wien (mainly HU). Others of note: HU to some lads from FC Zürich, UB and HK to Green Brigade, E1 to Karlsbande Aachen. Some contacts with Panathinaikos. KGB to Brigade Nassau with some contacts to Ajax and Lechia Gdansk as well.
Enemies: AIK, Djurgården, IFK Göteborg, Malmö
History:
Another massive scene by Swedish standards. Hammarby has only won one league title and one cup title and is by far the least decorated club of the big teams in Sweden. However the fans have always been loyal despite a lack of sporting success. Hammarby was the first team in the country to start singing in the stands and also the first team to introduce ultras culture to Sweden (the only three surviving ultra groups from the 90’s are all in Hammarby). The team is originally from a working-class area that is now gentrified/hipster and Hammarby is probably the main ”cult” club of Sweden, for better and for worse. Hammarby has a very strong connection to the south of Stockholm and is the dominant team there, and since Djurgården and Hammarby started groundsharing in 2013 that rivalry has become really infected. Strong rivalry with AIK too.
As for the style, Hammarby has a more chaotic style of support than the other two Stockholm clubs and I would say that the club is more similar to the southern European scenes compared to its rivals. HU started out as the first ultra group in Sweden and was originally more of a tifo group, while UB was perhaps the first properly organized ultras group in Sweden. These groups are still going strong 25-30 years later, but there are quite a few others as you can see from the list. As for hools, no official hool group existed until the beginning of the 00’s although there were unofficial smaller groups that fought pretty fiercely before then such as Tumbaligan and Sätraligan. BFB used to be the youth group of KGB but is now a separate firm, but no bad blood between them.
Instead of having one or two large groups the Hammarby scene has a large number of groups even though some are small, but they are united despite occasional differences in mentality and politics. Hools nowadays have more right tendencies (especially BFB) even though KGB used to have left tendencies in the past. Some of the other groups have left tendencies though, and politics are anyway not shown in the stands. Also, many groups mean many contacts to other teams, as seen above (there are other, less relevant contacts that I didn’t mention). Hammarby has good visual and vocal support, is also strong in the street and forest and is, without a doubt a top scene in the Nordics.
