gefle IF

Gävle's football club grew out of a general sports society formed in the town in December 1882, before it had settled on football as its focus; it was renamed Gefle IF and is now the oldest sports club still active in Sweden. Its early identity was built in a competition long since forgotten: the Rosenska Pokalen, which Gefle won three times, in 1899, 1900 and 1902.

The club's most stable spell came far later. Between 2005 and 2014 Gefle held a continuous run in Allsvenskan, part of fifteen top-flight seasons spread across the club's history, and it reached a Svenska Cupen final in 2006, losing 0-2 to Helsingborgs IF. That cup run, together with fair-play standing rather than league position, sent Gefle into European qualifying three times — in 2006-07, 2010-11 and 2013-14.

Between 1979 and 1981 the football section merged with the ice hockey club Brynäs IF, competing as Gefle IF/Brynäs, an arrangement unwound after two seasons. Promotion in 2004 was followed almost immediately by tragedy: manager Kenneth Rosén died that December, two months after securing the club's return to Allsvenskan. Per "Pelle" Olsson took over. Defender Jonas Lantto, who made twelve Allsvenskan seasons for the club between 2007 and 2018, became the first Gefle player to have his number retired.

Relegation in 2017 left the club outside the top two divisions for the first time in years, and attendances at Gävlevallen, home since 2015, fell with it. Gefle climbed back only as far as Superettan, winning Division 1 Norra in 2022, and still works from the third tier — a long way down from the society founded in a Gävle winter in 1882.