Hans "Hasse" Nell (born 27 May 1931) is a Swedish former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played for

Hammarby IF Hammarby Idrottsförening ("Hammarby Sports Club"), commonly known as Hammarby IF or simply Hammarby ( or, especially locally, ), is a Swedish sports club located in Stockholm, with a number of member organizations active in a variety of differ ...

his whole senior career.

Career

Nell was born and grew up in

Upplands Väsby Upplands Väsby () is a locality and the seat of Upplands Väsby Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 48,907 inhabitants in 2020. History The municipality has a long history with clear traces of settlements from the pre-Christian time ...

and started to play football with local club

Väsby IK Väsby IK may refer to: * Väsby IK FK, defunct football club * Väsby IK HK, ice hockey club {{disambig ...

as a youngster, before joining Stockholm-based

in 1950, at age 18. In his first seasons with the club, Nell established himself as a starting midfielder for Hammarby in Division 2, Sweden's second tier. By 1954, when Hammarby won a promotion to

Allsvenskan Allsvenskan (; ), also known as Fotbollsallsvenskan (, ) is a professional association football league in Sweden and the highest level of the Swedish football league system. Founded in 1924, it operates on a system of promotion and relegatio ...

, Nell had started to struggle in the competition and manager Folke Adamsson subsequently started to play him as a right back. The re-positioning proved to be successful; he won three caps for the Swedish national B team between 1954 and 1957, and got known as an aggressive and quick defender. During the later stages of his career, Nell also featured as a centre-back. He went on to play seven nine seasons with Hammarby in Allsvenskan, mostly as a regular. In 1957–58, Hammarby spent one year in the second tier, where the team scored an impressive 117 goals in 33 fixtures throughout the season, getting instantly promoted. They also competed in the second division in 1964, a season when Nell was plagued by injuries. Nell decided to retire after the 1965 Allsvenskan season. In total, he made 243 league appearances for Hammarby and scored 13 goals.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nell, Hans 1931 births Living people People from Upplands Väsby Municipality Swedish men's footballers Men's association football defenders Men's association football midfielders Allsvenskan players Hammarby Fotboll players Footballers from Stockholm County 20th-century Swedish sportsmen