Aalborg Boldspilklub is a Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 professional sports club

Sports club

A sports club or sport club, sometimes athletics club or sports association is a club for the purpose of playing one or more sports...

 based in the city of Aalborg

Aalborg

-Transport:On the north side of the Limfjord is Nørresundby, which is connected to Aalborg by a road bridge Limfjordsbroen, an iron railway bridge Jernbanebroen over Limfjorden, as well as a motorway tunnel running under the Limfjord Limfjordstunnelen....

. The club is also known as Aalborg BK or AaB for short. Through time the club has had branches in cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

, tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

 and basketball, but currently controls teams in football, American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

, ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

, floorball

Floorball

Floorball, a type of floor hockey, is an indoor team sport which was developed in the 1970s in Sweden. Floorball is most popular in areas where the sport has developed the longest, such as the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The game is played...

 and handball

Team handball

Handball is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each pass a ball to throw it into the goal of the other team...

. All teams are competing in the top-flight Danish league in their respective sport. The kit sponsor for the club is Adidas

Adidas

Adidas AG is a German sports apparel manufacturer and parent company of the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company , and Rockport...

, and the principal sponsor for the football and handball team is the regional bank Spar Nord

Spar Nord

Spar Nord Bank A/S is a bank based in North Jutland, Denmark.The history of the bank can be traced back to May 12th 1824, where "Bye og Omegns Sparekasse" was established in Aalborg...

.

AaB was founded on May 13, 1885 by English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 engineers who were building Jutland

Jutland

Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...

's railway system, and the first years was concentrated on the game of cricket. It was initially named Aalborg Cricketklub (Aalborg Cricketclub) but the name of the club was changed to Aalborg Boldklub (Aalborg ballclub) in 1899. Football was adopted on an amateur basis in 1902

1902 in football (soccer)

The following are the football events of the year 1902 throughout the world.-Clubs formed in 1902:*Norwich City Football Club*Real Madrid*Fluminense Football Club-Winners club national championship:*Hungary:...

, and has since been the main sport, as the name was changed to the current Aalborg Boldspilklub af 1885 (Aalborg ballgameclub of 1885) in 1906.

Football

The club established a men's football team in 1902. The team has been a part of the Danish Superliga

Danish Superliga

The Danish Superliga is the current Danish football championship tournament, and administered by the Danish Football Association. It is the highest association football league in Denmark and is currently contested by 12 teams each year, with 2 teams to be relegated, which proves to be one of the...

 championship since 1987

1987 in football (soccer)

The following are the football events of the year 1987 throughout the world.- Events :*UEFA Champions League: Porto 2 – 1 Bayern Munich in the final at the Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna....

, winning three championships in 1995

Danish Superliga 1994-95

The 1994-95 Danish Superliga season was the 5th season of the Danish Superliga league championship, governed by the Danish Football Association....

, 1999

Danish Superliga 1998-99

The 1998-99 Danish Superliga season was the 9th season of the Danish Superliga league championship, governed by the Danish Football Association. It took place from the first match on July 26, 1998 to final match on June 16, 1999....

 and in 2008

2008 in football (soccer)

The following are the association football events of the year 2008 throughout the world.- Events :*20 January to 10 February – Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana*4 May to 16 May - UEFA U-17 Championship in Turkey...

.

After a good 2006/2007 season AaB qualified for the UEFA cup facing the Italian team U.C Sampdoria. AaB was heavily underdogs and no one really expected AaB to stand in the way for the 1992 UEFA Champions League runners up. After an impressive performance AaB got away with a 2-2 draw in Italy and after a heroic fight in Denmark ending 0-0, AaB advanced to the group play.
They then faced Anderlecht, Getafe, Tottenham and Hapoel Tel Aviv. After drawing with Anderlecht they went to face Tottenham on White Hart Lane.
AaB almost shook up the world by having a 2-0 lead at the end of the first half. Unfortunately the lack of experience in Europe got to them in the second half and they eventually lost the game 3-2.

AaB was eliminated after finishing 4th in the group but the international adventure was only at its beginning.

The 2007/2008 season ended with AaB 3rd championship since 1995 and after beating up FBK Kaunas AaB was ready play in the UEFA Champions League for the second time. Now they had to face the mighty Manchester United, Celtic and Villarreal. Again no one expected AaB to have a regular chance and most people were sure they would finish last with one or two points. But the team wanted it different and in the first game away against Celtic, AaB fought heroic and secured a 0-0 thanks to goalkeeper Karim Zaza saving a penalty in the opening of the match.
AaB then lost 0-3 home against Manchester United before facing Villarreal away. AaB again fought heroic but in the end lost 6-3 after leading 0-1. Next match was home again against Villarreal and it was clear that the team wanted to revenge the defeat from last match. It didn’t go as planned for AaB but the team yet again fought the way back and ended up with a 2-2 draw.
Next game was home against Celtic. Before the beginning of the tournament no one was expecting that AaB would still be in the run for the 3rd place but now they had to play Celtic for the ticket to the UEFA cup second round. First half ended 0-0 but in the beginning of the second half Celtic gained the lead. AaB now had to score twice in order to secure the ticket and such a result seemed miles away. Somehow the team was able to fight its way back and they ended up with a 2-1 victory scoring the winning goal just 4 minutes before the final whistle.
AaB did the impossible and secured the ticket before facing Manchester United on the legendary Theatre of Dreams, Old Trafford. As expected AaB was behind 1-0 early in the match but before half time the team had send out shockwaves through Europe by scoring twice and was now leading 1-2 at half time. United only managed to score once in the second half and AaB got away with an impressive 2-2.

Next stop was the UEFA Cup second round. Now facing Deportivo La Coruna AaB yet again was the underdog and besides from the supporters no one actually expected the team to advance. After the first match in Denmark AaB had proven everyone wrong by crushing Deportivo 3-0. Still most people expected Deportivo to do the same to AaB in Spain and Manchester City, who had to face the winner, almost booked the tickets for Spain before the second match. Deportivo started well and got a 1-0 lead but in the end of the first half AaB scored impressive 3 goals in just 5 minutes. The impossible was now possible; AaB was trough to the next round after a total win of 6-1.

Manchester City seemed like a mission impossible. The club was the richest club on the planet and players like Robinho made more money than all of the AaB squad did in total. After a 2-0 defeat at City of Manchester Stadium it would take a miracle to turn things around in Denmark. But Manchester City being 'Typical City' never turned up and allowed Aalborg to progress into extra time and penalties where thats the furthest they got. City finally dispatching them in the penalty shootout 4-3.

The 2010/2011 season was a catastrophe for Aab. Only in the last match of the season did AaB definitively avoid losing their status as a Superliga team.

Other sports

Handball was adopted by AaB in 2003, when the local men's team Aalborg HSH was bought and renamed AaB Håndbold (AaB handball). Since then, the club has played in the Danish top-flight handball league, though they have never won the league title. In May 2007, AaB published the plans to take over the women's handball team of Aalborg DH, as a part of the AaB Håndbold brand, as Aalborg DH did not pass a due diligence test, the takeover was never completed. With the expanded handball section, the men's team have moved their games to Aalborg DH's venue, Gigantium

Gigantium

The Gigantium, in Aalborg, Denmark, is a large, rentable faire building, which hosts a large variety of concerts, markets and exhibitions, among other things...

 Arena. AaB also owns the professional ice hockey team of AaB Ishockey, which builds on the amateur youth development of Aalborg Ishockey Klub (AIK), which built on two merged clubs AaB Ishockey and IK Aalborg. AaB Ishockey won the 1981 Danish championship. From 2004 to 2007, AaB Ishockey has won four sets of silver medal

Silver medal

A silver medal is a medal awarded to the second place finisher of contests such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, and contests with similar formats....

s in a row. In 2005, AaB coorporated with Aalborg Basketball Klub (ABK) in order to build the AaB Basket team. The basketball team was no success, and was dismantled in March 2007, reverting the team to its ABK roots. AaB also has a Floorball division, which in 2007/08 has secured promotion to the best league in Denmark. The team is located and plays matches at Hornevej where the rest of AaB's training facilities are located. AaB 89ers is an american football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 team started in 1989, they play at semi-professional level in National League (the best Danish league). AaB Tennis plays at amateur level.

Management

Aalborg Boldspilklub af 1885 http://www.aabaf1885.dk

• Chairman of the board Jesper Møller

AaB A/S

AaB A/S

Aalborg Boldspilklub A/S is a Danish sports corporation based in Aalborg Denmark. Founded July 1, 1987, AaB A/S is most noted for ownership of the professional football team AaB Fodbold. Other holdings include professional handball and hockey teams, a retail sports chain, a conference and sports...

 http://www.aabsport.dk

• Managing director Poul Sørensen
• Finance director Lars Vadsholt Jørgensen
• Chairman of the board Lars Søndergaard Pedersen

AaB Football

AaB Football

AaB Fodbold, also referred to as Aalborg BK or AaB, is a professional football team of Danish sports conglomerate Aalborg Boldspilklub, located in Aalborg. They play in the Danish Superliga and have won three Danish Superliga championships and two Danish Cup trophies.AaB became the first Danish...

:

• Sports director Lynge Jakobsen

AaB Handball

AaB Handball

Aalborg Handball is a handball club from Aalborg, Denmark. Aalborg Handball competes in the Danish Handball League. The home arena of AaB Handball is the Gigantium in Aalborg.- History :...

:

• Sports director Jan Larsen

AaB Ishockey:

• Manager Karsten Arvidsen

External links

AaB A/S (professional branch)
} Aalborg Boldspilklub af 1885 (football amateur foundation)
} Aalborg Ishockey Klub (ice hockey amateur foundation)
} Aalborg Basketball Klub (basketball amateur foundation)
} AaB Floorball (Floorball amateur foundation)

• UEFA football profile Aalborg Support Club (Official fanclub of AaB)