Halmstad

Örjans vall opened in 1922 and has never been anything but a municipal ground.

The club that plays there was formed on 7 February 1914, though Halmstads BK counts 6 March as its birthday: that was the day the Swedish Sports Confederation admitted it. The blue-and-white kit and the plain nickname Bollknubben — the ball club — date from a time when nothing more elaborate was required.

Four Allsvenskan titles came in bursts far apart: 1976 and 1979, then a gap of eighteen years before 1997 and 2000. The last of them is the one worth dwelling on, because HBK won it as the smallest club in the division, from a city of well under 100,000, against opposition from Stockholm and Gothenburg with budgets several times the size. Between those two eras sat the Svenska Cupen of 1994/95, settled in the final against AIK.

The abbreviation HBK is what you will hear in Halmstad itself; the full name belongs to the record books and the league table.