Kjøbenhavns Boldklub (known simply asKB) was a Danish professionalmulti-sports club based inCopenhagen. The club was founded on 26 April 1876 on the grassy fields in outer Copenhagen which later becameFælledparken.Tennis has been played since 1883. The club hosted, in 1921, one of the early tennis majors: the World Covered Court Championships, won byWilliam Laurentz that year. Today, along with the sports already mentioned, the club also has facilities forbadminton,swimming andpétanque.

KB

Full name	Kjøbenhavns Boldklub
Short name	KB
Founded	26 April 1876; 149 years ago (1876-04-26)
Ground	Frederiksberg I P Opvisning, Copenhagen
Chairman	Niels-Christian Holmstrøm
Manager	Niels Sørensen
League	Københavnsserien (tier 5)
Website	www.kb-boldklub.dk
Home colours Away colours

Football andcricket has been played in KB since 1879, meaning that KB's football team was the first club on continental Europe and it went on to become one of the most successful club in Denmark, winning 15Danish championship titles from 1913 to 1980. In 1991, KB andB 1903 merged their professional football teams and formedF.C. Copenhagen.

KB's logo is designed by architect and designerThorvald Bindesbøll (1846–1908). Bindesbøll also designed theCarlsberg logo, and KB's logo is believed to be sponsored by Carlsberg.

KB was founded as a result of Copenhageners' burgeoning interest insport, which increased significantly throughout the second half of the 1800s. In particular, ball games such aslong-ball,sting-ball andround-ball were popular in the capital, and when theCopenhagen Municipality demolished theramparts and tore down thecity gates in 1852, the Copenhageners found it easier to search out forcommon areas to practice sports. The club's official four founders wereprinter F. V. Levison,treasurer August Nielsen, andwholesalers Carl Møller and E. Selmer. Among the co-founders was alsoFrederik Markmann, who later became the first chairman of theDanish Football Association (DBU), which was founded in May 1889.^[1]

Football was added to the club's programme on 24 October 1878, making it the oldest football club in the world outside of theUnited Kingdom and the oldest football club on continental Europe.^[2] The first advertised games were scheduled to be held in a military exercise ground ("Exercerplads") nearRosenborg Castle on 5 January 1879 (at 11am). Nine months later, on 7 September 1879, the first-ever football match in Denmark was held inEremitagen inKlampenborg, whereBirkerød Kostskole Boldklub faced KB's juniors, with the Birkerød school students team winning 3–0.^[1] Other sources claim this match was actually held at Rosenborg's Exercerplads on 16 December 1883.

In 1888, KB, which was by far the leading club of the time, organized the first Danish football tournament in 1888, which was attended by 15 clubs and bore the official name"Medaille Fodbold-Konkurrencen i 1888".^[3] KB were the pre-tournament favourites and lived up to it by comfortably winning the tournament, beating BK Haabet in the final on 29 April 1888 with a resounding 14–0 victory, scoring 40 goals in total and not conceding a single one.^[3] KB's dominance and undisputed status as Denmark's best football club was also reflected in the fact that the club paid a significant part of the total expenses for the completion of the tournament.^[3]

In the first years of football in Denmark, the sport was played in places such as Rosenborg's Exercerplads andEremitagen, but this changed in 1893, when KB become the first Danish club to get its own football field, being quickly followed up byAB,BK Frem andB93, who also got their own tracks.^[4] In 1893, KB gathered its activities in Frederiksberg (whereForum Copenhagen is located today), where surrounded by 10 tennis courts was the larger courtGranen (K.B.'s Skt. Markus), which in 1910 was the home ground for Denmark's first international football match underDBU auspices, a 2–1 win overEngland Amateurs.^[5]

TheDanish Football Association (DBU) was founded byFrederik Markmann in May 1889, a formercricket andtennis player who, among other things, had been a co-founder and chairman of KB. In the same year, DBU organized the first edition ofFodboldturneringen, which was held between 1889 and 1903, with KB winning on four occasions, including back-to-back titles in 1896–97 and 1897–98.^[6] The Fodboldturneringen was the forerunner for theDanish National Football Tournament, which was held for the first time in1912–13, and ended with a KB triumph, thus becoming the first Danish champions.

In 1908, whenDenmark made their international debut at theOlympic Games, the club provided seven players to the 17-man squad, three defenders (the Middelboe brothers,Einar,Nils andteam captainKristian), three forwards (Oskar Nielsen,Rasmussen andWolfhagen) and the team'sgoalkeeperLudvig Drescher, of which six started in thefinal againstGreat Britain in a 0–2 loss. They were the fundamental players behind Denmark's silver medal campaign, with Nils Middelboe scoring Denmark's first-ever official goal in a 9–0 victory overFrance on 19 October 1908,^[7] while Vilhelm Wolfhagen scored 8 goals in just two matches, a poker in both the quarter and the semi-finals.

The club began to spread its activities beyond Copenhagen. Among other things, they moved the football team into theKøbenhavns Idrætspark (today'sParken Stadium) onØsterbro, which was inaugurated on 25 May 1911 with a football match between a combined team from B93 and KB against the English sideSheffield Wednesday, ending in a 3–2 to the latter.^{[citation needed]} Later in the year, an audience record for a football match in Denmark was set with 11,233 spectators when a selected Copenhagen team with six KB players met the Scottish championRangers FC fromGlasgow, who won by the score of 4–1.^{[citation needed]} This attendance record only lasted three years, until Denmark metEngland Amateurs on 5 June 1914 and won 3–0 in front of 18,500 spectators in Idrætspark.But in the early 1990s, KB andBoldklubben 1903 were in financial trouble. At the same time, new Danish giants and local rivalsBrøndby won 5 championships in 7 seasons. Moreover, withParken Stadium soon finished, both clubs acted the merger on 1 July 1992.^[8]

Denmark national football team all-time top scorerPoul Nielsen (1891–1962) played for KB during all of his career. One of Denmark's all-time greatest players,Michael Laudrup, played for the club from 1980 to 1982 before rejoiningBrøndby IF. Legendary strikerPreben Elkjær played for KB for one season as a trainee (1973–1974), whileNicklas Bendtner, who in 2019 played forFCK, was a former trainee at KB between the years of 2002 and 2004.

Since November 2018, KB is a member of theClub of Pioneers.

In 1883,tennis became part of the club's activities, first atRosenborg's Exercerplads, while the first actual tennis courts were built in 1889 by KB in Dronningens Mølle at Rosenkrantz Bastion (whereØsterport station is today). In the late 19th century, KB established a large tennis facility called Porcelainsfabrik, which in 1902 laid the courts for the first major international tournament in Denmark. At one point in the 1920s, the club had more than 50 tennis courts, but as of 2021, the number has been reduced to just under 40. For a few years aroundWorld War I (1913 and 1919–23), theInternational Tennis Federation held theWorld Covered Court Championships, and in 1921 they took place in KB's first tennis hall at Pile Allé inFrederiksberg, and KB won the tournament.

Danish championship

• Champions (15) :1912–13,1913–14,1916–17,1917–18,1921–22,1924–25,1931–32,1939–40,1947–48,1948–49,1949–50,1952–53,1968,1974,1980

Danish Cup

• Winners: 1968–69
• Runners-up: 1957–58, 1960–61, 1964–65, 1965–66, 1983–84
• 53seasons in theHighest Danish League
• 6seasons in theSecond Highest Danish League
• 1season in theThird Highest Danish League

• Nils Middelboe
• Vilhelm Wolfhagen
• Poul Nielsen
• Preben Elkjær
• Michael Laudrup
• Nicklas Bendtner

All players who have played in 50 or more such matches or played international football during their time at the club are listed below. Players are listed according to the date of their first professional contract signed with the club. Appearances and goals are for first-team competitive matches only; wartime matches are excluded, but substitute appearances are included.

Poul Nielsen holds both the appearance and goalscoring records, with 201 appearances and 276 goals between 1907 and 1927.Torben Piechnik is the only other player with over 100 appearances, with 175 between 1980 and 1987.

In the first official game of theDenmark national football team on 19 October 1908, at the1908 Summer Olympics, five players represented KB in that team, including team captainKristian Middelboe. Since then, a total 75 players have represented KB in the senior Denmark national team.^[9][10]

Listed according to the year of debut.

• 1900s:Ludvig Drescher (1908),Kristian Middelboe (1908),Nils Middelboe (1908),Vilhelm Wolfhagen (1908),Oskar Nørland (1908),Bjørn Rasmussen (1908)
• 1910s:Poul 'Tist' Nielsen (1910),Ivar Lykke (1911),Svend Aage Castella (1911),Kristian Gyldenstein (1911),Christian Morville (1912),Georg Brysting (1912),Alf Olsen (1917),Steen Steensen Blicher (1918),Valdemar Laursen (1918)
• 1920s:Leo Dannin (1920),Poul Graae (1920),Axel V. Preno (1922),Svend Aage Remtoft (1923),Aage Jørgensen (1923),Wilhelm Nielsen (1925),Erik Eriksen (1929)
• 1930s:Henning Jensen (1931),Oscar Jørgensen (1932),Georg Taarup (1932),Eli Larsen (1933),Hans Christensen (1934),Egon Andersen (1936),Helge Jørgensen (1937),Jørgen Iversen (1938),John Nielsen (1938),Erik Glümer (1938)
• 1940s:Harald Lyngsaa (1940),Eigil Nielsen (1940),Jørn Jegsen (1943),Niels Bennike (1945),Gustaf Pålsson (1945),Jørgen W. Hansen (1947),Dion Ørnvold (1947),Axel Pilmark (1947),Erik Køppen (1949)
• 1950s:Arnold Olsen (1950),Erik Hansen (1951),Jørgen Johansen (1952),Martin Kristensen (1952),Per Jensen (1952),Vagn Birkeland (1954),Jens Torstensen (1956),Finn Alfred Hansen (1957),Jørn Sørensen (1958),Per Funch Jensen (1959),Arne Karlsen (1959)
• 1960s:Bent Krog (1961),Ole Sørensen (1961),Henning Helbrandt (1961), Nils Jensen (1961),Gert Hansen (1961),Eyvind Clausen (1962),Niels Møller (1966),Kurt Præst (1968),Niels-Christian Holmstrøm (1968)
• 1970s:Flemming Pedersen (1970),Niels Hagenau (1971),Eigil Nielsen (1971),Niels Sørensen (1974),Anders Sørensen (1974),Karl Aage Skouborg (1974),Torsten Andersen (1977),Klaus Nørregaard (1977),Henrik Agerbeck (1978),Ole Højgaard (1979),Finn Laudrup (1979),Ole Qvist (1979),Palle Hansen (1979)
• 1980s:Henrik Eigenbrod (1981)

• Jens Jam Rasmussen and Michael Rachlin, "Slaget om København" (The battle of Copenhagen), Denmark, 2005,ISBN 87-91693-55-1.
• Allan Mylius Thomsen, "K.B. – 125 år. Et kalejdoskopisk billede af en boldklub og dens by"

• Team profile at the Danish Football Association official website