Fresh, fellows, be at hand! Picture by the painter Solwei Stampe of the construction of the clubhouse of the Proletarian FF in the 70s
‘Yes, you can walk from the tram stop, but I’ll pick you up. Has to take one of our boys to training anyway.« A little later, Henrik Källén, chairman of the sports association Proletären FF, drives up in a squeaking small car. “Sorry, the brakes aren’t the best.”
We are located in the Västra Frölunda district of Gothenburg. There, wealth and poverty collide like nowhere else in Sweden. A residential area on one side of the expressway, social housing on the other.
We ignore the villas, pick up the boy from a day care center and drive to the clubhouse, an imposing wooden building with a lounge, changing rooms, sports hall and boxing ring in the basement. Next to it is a small seven-a-side soccer field. The U10 meets there today for training. Källen himself has to step in as a coach, the actual coach is prevented. Since the U10 game is canceled at the weekend, match training is on the agenda. The boys try tricks that they probably studied on Youtube, which some succeed, others not so much. I can stand in the gate for a while. One of the up-and-coming talents pours me one. His role model, he explains to me later, is Neymar.
Almost 50 years to the day, on September 25, 1972, Proletären FF was registered in the Swedish Sports Federation’s register of associations. The founders were members of the »Communist Union of Marxists-Leninists (revolutionary)«, KFML (r), a splinter group of the »Left Party-Communists«. After the Left Party dropped the suffix “Communists” from the party name in 1990, the KFML (r) became the Communist Party. The club name of the athletes is based on the party newspaper: »The Proletarian«.
After training, Bengt Frejd, one of the co-founders, joins us in the clubhouse. I want to know why a sports club was founded back then. That, he says, is easy: there were many workers in KFML (r) who were interested in sports. The party executive thought the idea was a good one, because it meant it could reach a large part of the population.
The clubhouse is the heart of the proletarian FF. The members built it themselves in the late 1970s. Not everyone in Gothenburg agreed. There was repeated damage to property during construction, and a bomb even exploded shortly before completion. After that, the clubhouse was guarded around the clock for decades. A group of volunteers met at night and used the time to bake stollen for the café, wash jerseys and clean the changing rooms.
Proletarian FF today focuses on youth soccer, martial arts (boxing and muay thai) and an athletics group. Handball and volleyball used to be played, and there was also a gymnastics group. The history of the club has been marked by ups and downs, says Frejd, “like in every club”. Things are going well at the moment, a lot of boys and girls are coming to football. This is not least due to Henrik Källén, who, when he took over the office of chairman a few years ago, focused on social commitment. For example, during the summer months, Proletären FF organizes football schools on the soccer fields in the poorer districts of Västra Frölunda. Many new members find their way to the club this way. The political consciousness of the members is no longer as strong as it was 50 years ago, but Frejd believes that is a natural development.
Of course, politics has not disappeared from the club. Every year since 1985, Proletär FF has organized a »Peace Walk« with more than 1,000 participants, raising money for political purposes. In 2022, a campaign against Sweden joining NATO, a women’s group in Palestine and a project to supply Cuba with medicines were funded.
Initially most of the money went to the ANC in South Africa. Proletarian FF has a close history with this. Every summer in the 1980s, children of ANC members in exile in Europe were invited to Gothenburg. At the same time, South African physical education teachers were trained. One of his closest confidants was Bill Jardine, who is primarily responsible for the ANC’s sports policy. An anecdote says that when the end of the apartheid regime became apparent, Jardine made the first sketch of the current national flag of South Africa in the clubhouse of the Proletarian FF. Frejd says he can confirm this, even if it can’t be proven. In any case, Nelson Mandela accepted the post of honorary chairman offered to him by the Gothenburg Sport Communists. These have not been forgotten by the ANC to this day. Just a few weeks ago, Frejd was invited by the South African ambassador to Sweden to an event to commemorate the Swedish anti-apartheid movement – a representative of proletarian FF should not be missing, said the South African government officials.
Swedish celebrities are also close to the club. Ruben “the Red” Svensson, a tough full-back in the legendary IFK Gothenburg team that won the UEFA Cup twice in the 1980s, supports the club, as does Pia Sundhage, who after coaching national teams in the USA and Sweden now operates in Brazil. When time permits, Sundhage performs at club events or helps out as a coach at the football summer schools. A few years ago, in an interview, I asked her why she was involved in Västra Frölunda. Sundhage dryly: “They do a great job there.”
Frejd and Källen don’t care that proletarian FF is commonly known as the “Sports Club of the Communist Party,” but that’s not correct. “Not a single crown” you get from the party. It was never about being a party association. It was always more important to stand up for small clubs in the Swedish Sports Association that promote popular sport. If, for example, millions in subsidies go to Frölunda HC, one of Sweden’s largest ice hockey clubs, Proletären FF demands millions for the construction of new artificial turf pitches between the concrete buildings.
During the conversation with Frejd and Källén, the clubhouse fills with Palestinian families preparing for a funeral service. I ask if the two know the people. ‘Some of them, they’re members. But the clubhouse is there for everyone.«
