Official Djurgårdens IF away and home jersey 2002-2003

Djurgårdens Idrottsförening, commonly known simply as Djurgårdens IF, Djurgården (), and (especially locally) Djurgår'n (), Dif or DIF – is a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

sports association with several sections, located in Stockholm.

Name

The club is named after the City Park and borough

Djurgården Djurgården ( or ) or, more officially, ''Kungliga Djurgården'' (), is an island in central Stockholm, Sweden. Djurgården is home to historical buildings and monuments, museums, galleries, the amusement park Gröna Lund, the open-air museu ...

, which originally was a royal hunting park. A direct translation of ''Djurgården'' would be “the animal garden” or "the animal yard". The word ''djur'' means "animal" but has the same etymology as the word “deer”, meaning "deer garden" may have been its original meaning.

History

The club was founded in 1891 by a group of young

athletes An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance. Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-dev ...

living in the borough and port district Djurgårdsstaden on

in central Stockholm. Most of the founders were from the shipping industry

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...

, and Djurgården maintained that profile for most of its early history, in sharp contrast with

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Co ...

rivals AIK. With an original focus on

winter sports Winter sports or winter activities are competitive sports or non-competitive recreational activities which are played on snow or ice. Most are variations of skiing, ice skating and sledding. Traditionally, such games were only played in cold a ...

and athletics, the club quickly branched into other sports, becoming one of Sweden's most successful sports clubs of the 20th and 21st century. The club started playing

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is t ...

in 1899 and soon started a derby rivalry with neighbouring club AIK, the so-called tvillingderbyt. Today the most popular sections are

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two o ...

and football, with 16 and 12

national championship titles respectively. Other popular sections are

bandy Bandy is a winter sport and ball sport played by two teams wearing ice skates on a large ice surface (either indoors or outdoors) while using sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal. The international governing body for bandy is ...

, handball and

floorball Floorball is a type of floor hockey with five players and a goalkeeper in each team. Men and women play indoors with sticks and a plastic ball with holes. Matches are played in three twenty-minute periods. The sport of bandy also played a role ...

. The club has won 466 Swedish championships through 2022, with this Djurgården is the most successful sports club in Sweden, it is also more championship titles than the two main rivals AIK and Hammarby have together.

Crest and colours

The first crest of the club was a four-pointed silver star in saltire, which had a shield on it with the letters DIF. This star pre-dates the similar star which

Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna (English: Sporting Society Comrades), usually abbreviated IFK, is a central organisation for many sports clubs in Sweden. There are also eight IFK clubs in Finland but they are organised separately. The Swedish IFK w ...

adopted and is using to this day. The present crest, in the form of a shield in yellow, red and blue with the text D.I.F. was adopted in 1896. According to an often-quoted poem by Johan af Klercker from 1908, blue and yellow stand for Sweden and red stands for love. Blue and yellow are also the colours of Stockholm and yellow, red and blue are the colors of the crest of Stockholm County. Yellow, red and blue are the club colours. The logo is registered as a

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from oth ...

and the colours are set to

Pantone Pantone LLC (stylized as PANTONE) is a limited liability company headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey. The company is best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color space used in a variety of industries, notably graph ...

CMYK The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refer ...

and web colour values. In many sports – among them football, bandy and handball – the home jersey of the team is vertically striped in light and dark blue. Because of this, blue is usually seen as the most important of the three colours. The ice hockey team uses jerseys in one blue shade with yellow and red details.

Sections

Djurgårdens IF has a number of member sections, all of which legally are their own associations with their own financial and sporting responsibilities but share the common name, logo and values and support each other.

Major sections

Djurgårdens IF Fotboll Djurgårdens IF Fotbollsförening – commonly known as Djurgårdens IF, Djurgården Fotboll (official name), Djurgården (), and (especially locally) Djurgår'n (), Dif or DIF – is the men's association football department of its parent asso ...

– football (men) * Djurgårdens IF Hockey –

(men) * Djurgårdens IF Hockey (women) – ice hockey (women)

Other sections

* Djurgårdens IF Alpint –

alpine skiing Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the pastime of sliding down snow-covered slopes on skis with fixed-heel bindings, unlike other types of skiing ( cross-country, Telemark, or ski jumping), which use skis with free-heel bindings. Whether ...

Djurgårdens IF Amerikansk fotboll Djurgårdens IF Amerikansk Fotboll is the section for American football within the sports club Djurgårdens IF in Stockholm. The American football club was founded in 2005. In 2009 and 2010, Djurgården played in Superserien, the top-tier for Amer ...

–

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

* Djurgårdens IF Bandy –

Djurgårdens IF Basket Djurgårdens IF Basket, also known as simply Djurgården, is a Swedish basketball club based in Stockholm. It is the basketball section of the Djurgårdens IF multi-sports club, established in 1891. In 2019, Djurgården won the Superettan, Sweden' ...

–

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

* Djurgårdens IF Beachsoccer – beach soccer (men) * Djurgårdens IF Beachsoccer Dam – beach soccer (women) * Djurgårdens IF Bordtennisförening –

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

* Djurgårdens IF Boule – boule * Djurgårdens IF Bowling –

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), thoug ...

Djurgårdens IF Boxningsförening Djurgårdens IF Boxningsförening is the section for boxing within the Swedish sports club Djurgårdens IF in Stockholm. Djurgårdens IF is one of Sweden's oldest boxing clubs. The section was formally founded in 1917, but members in the main club ...

–

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...

* Djurgårdens IF Brottningsförening –

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

* Djurgårdens IF Cricket –

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

* Djurgårdens IF Fotboll Dam –

women's football Women's football most often refers to: * Women's association football (hannah jones ). Women's football may also refer to: * Women's gridiron football * Women's Australian rules football * Ladies' Gaelic football * Women's rugby league * Women's ...

* Djurgårdens IF Fäktförening –

fencing Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, ...

* Djurgårdens IF Friidrott – athletics * Djurgårdens IF Futsal –

futsal Futsal is a football-based game played on a hard court smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and indoor football. Futsal is played between two teams of five players each, one of whom is t ...

* Djurgårdens IF Golfförening –

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

* Djurgårdens IF Handboll – handball * Djurgårdens IF Handikappfotboll – handicap football * Djurgårdens IF Innebandy –

* Djurgårdens IF Konståkningsförening –

figure skating Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, when contested at the Figure skating at the 1908 Summer Olympics, 1908 Olympics ...

* Djurgårdens IF Orienteringsförening –

orienteering Orienteering is a group of sports that require navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain whilst moving at speed. Participants are given a topographical map, usually a ...

Former sections

Previously, Djurgårdens IF had sections in other sports. One of these was ski jumping and DIF was one of the best clubs in Sweden in this sport for fifty years.

Fans and fan culture

Djurgården is one of the most supported clubs in Sweden, with most of its supporters living in Stockholm and the neighbouring

suburbs A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include Commercial area, commercial and mixed-use development, mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a ...

. While other Stockholm clubs have profiled themselves as belonging to a certain

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle ...

of Stockholm, Djurgården is seen as more of a pan-Stockholm club. No reliable research exists about the spread of Djurgården supporters, but a 2015

T-shirt A T-shirt (also spelled tee shirt), or tee, is a style of fabric shirt named after the T shape of its body and sleeves. Traditionally, it has short sleeves and a round neckline, known as a '' crew neck'', which lacks a collar. T-shirts are genera ...

campaign suggests that supporters are spread fairly evenly throughout the Stockholm area. In 1981 the main supporter club "Blue Saints" was formed, but due to its notorious fans and their bad reputation, the supporter club changed its name to Järnkaminerna, literally "The Iron Furnaces" (an old nickname for Djurgården athletes from the 1950s). Since 2005, Fabriken is Djurgården's TIFO group; they have two ultras groups: UCS (Ultra caos Stockholm) and Ultras Sthlm. Djurgården is probably one of a few clubs in the world who is represented both in space (by Christer Fuglesang) and in the Himalayas (by Raul Helander). Through the years, many types of souvenirs and memorabilia has been made for the club.

Stuffed toy A stuffed toy is a toy doll with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, stuffed animals, and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be c ...

s in the form of a rabbit called Järnkanin ("Iron Rabbit") are sold, the name a pun on the word Järnkamin.

Club beers

A couple of beers have been created over the years. At present, Alberget 4A is sold for Djurgårdens IF. It is named for the address of the café where the club was founded. The beer was launched in 2013 and is sold through ''Djurgårdshjälpen'', a supporter initiative to raise money for the sports club. Originally, the beer was called ''Alltid oavsett'' ("always, no matter what"), which is a slogan often used by supporters of Djurgårdens IF. The beer is a pale lager of 5.0% abv made by

Grebbestad Bryggeri Grebbestad Bryggeri is a brewery in the town Grebbestad on the Swedish west coast. It is a relatively small and local brewery producing their products mainly for the use of the local county Bohuslän. Their main production are in two lager beers ...

on behalf of Djurgårdshjälpen and is not part of Grebbestad Bryggeri's own range of beers.

Famous Djurgården supporters

*His Majesty

Carl XVI Gustaf Carl XVI Gustaf (Carl Gustaf Folke Hubertus; born 30 April 1946) is King of Sweden. He ascended the throne on the death of his grandfather, Gustaf VI Adolf, on 15 September 1973. He is the youngest child and only son of Prince Gustaf Adolf, ...

, King of Sweden *

Fredrik Reinfeldt John Fredrik Reinfeldt (pronounced ; born 4 August 1965) is a Swedish economist, lecturer, and former politician who was Prime Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014, and chairman of the liberal conservative Moderate Party from 2003 to 2015. He ...

, former Prime Minister of Sweden *

Olof Palme Sven Olof Joachim Palme (; ; 30 January 1927 – 28 February 1986) was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1976 and 1982 to 1986. Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 until ...

, former Prime Minister of Sweden * Lars Ohly, former party leader of Vänsterpartiet * Joakim Thåström, musician * Stefan Persson, former CEO of H&M * Carl-Henric Svanberg, business leader * Loa Falkman, opera singer * Christer Fuglesang, astronaut, first Scandinavian in space * Martin Soneby, Swedish comedian * Veronica Maggio * Robin Söderling * Magnus Uggla *

Felix Herngren Felix Tobias Herngren (born 4 February 1967), is a Swedish director, actor, writer and comedian. He is known for creating and acting in the Swedish television drama-comedy series ''Solsidan''. He is the younger brother of director and actor Må ...

Organisations in close cooperation

The following non-profit organisations are independent but has a close official cooperation with Djurgårdens IF: *DIF Supporters Club (stipends for young and promising athletes etc.) *Sällskapet Gamla Djurgårdare *Djurgårdsandan (club values) *DIF-arkivet (maintaining club history)

Note

References

External links

*
Official supporter organisation website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Djurgardens IF Sports teams in Sweden Multi-sport clubs in Sweden Sports clubs established in 1891 1891 establishments in Sweden it:Djurgårdens Idrottsförening Fotboll