Vejle

Kolding sits close enough to Vejle that a merger once seemed to make sense — in June 2011 the two clubs combined into Vejle Boldklub Kolding. It lasted two years. By June 2013 the project had failed, the joint club was dissolved, and Vejle Boldklub returned to its own name.

The club actually started as cricket. Twenty-three residents of the town founded it on 3 May 1891, and football was not part of the plan — it was added to the activities in 1902, more than a decade later. The name has never changed since.

Vejle Stadion holds 11,060, of which 7,567 are seated. The shirts have been red with white shorts and white socks since 1911.

Allan Simonsen came through the youth ranks here before he went on to become the only Danish footballer to win the Ballon d'Or, in 1977 with Borussia Mönchengladbach. He returned to Vejle in 1983 and 1984 — the two league titles he had helped win, in 1971 and 1972, sat alongside three more, in 1958, 1978 and 1984. The domestic cup came six times, the last of them in 1981, which under the rules of the day meant Vejle kept the trophy outright.

A cricket club, formed by twenty-three people in a Jutland town, decided in 1902 that it might as well try the other game too.