If Gnistan

Oulunkylä sits north of central Helsinki, a residential district known less for landmarks than for the small stadium at its centre, home to IF Gnistan since the club's earliest years. It was founded on 12 February 1924 by pupils of two Swedish-language schools, Svenska Reallyceum and Åggelby Svenska Samskola, with Bror Krabbe as its first chairman, a post he held until 1961. Football did not become its own section until 1935, and Gnistan stayed a multi-sport club into the late 1950s, when chairman Jacob Söderman steered it toward football alone.

The nickname Kipinä — "Spark" — has stuck ever since, worn on yellow shirts over blue shorts at the Oulunkylä Football Stadium, built in 1934 and holding 2,700. A fire in July 2024 destroyed the main stand; a temporary replacement went up in April 2025, and in the meantime, as in 2017, Gnistan played its home matches at the Töölö Football Stadium instead.

Gnistan's one trophy came in 2020, the Kakkosen Cup, beating JIPPO in the final — a year after the same competition had gone to JIPPO, with Gnistan among the entrants but not the winner. The route into Veikkausliiga was stranger still: second place in Ykkönen in 2023 was followed by a playoff defeat to IFK Mariehamn, yet Gnistan went up anyway once FC Honka's bankruptcy freed a licence. The debut season, in 2024, ended in 8th place — Juhani Ojala, an HJK academy product back home that year after spells with Young Boys, Akhmat and Motherwell, was among the new arrivals. Gnistan finished 6th in 2025.

Across Central Helsinki, the fixture that matters is against KäPa — Käpylän Pallo — the Keski-Helsingin derby, last settled in Gnistan's favour, 1-0, in 2023.