Every football-maniacs knows the passion of the Scaninavian football fans, when it comes to support yours team. Today, we’ll focus on the FC København world, a modern club which keeps expanding itself, and rush on its tifo universe. In both Danish and European away games, the faithful Løverne fans are always active with some memorable choreographies, loads of smokes, and chants that became famous in the whole nordic-football world. However, is at Telia Parken, the home of FCK, where you can assist to a truly amazing show, in every single fixture of the season. The strong rivalry with the fellow citizens of Brøndby made Parken a true blockhouse in which fans can extern their capital-citizens identity, for the sorrow of the rival fans, based on the ovest suburbs of the principal city of Sjælland, and of whole Denmark. Few months ago, the white & blue club celebrated its 25th birthday; in 1992, at the same time as Superligaen was borned (in the same year as the English Premier League), KB and B1903 (two teams from the capital city), joined with the intention to oppose to Brøndby, their principal and sworn rivals. Since 1992, it has been a total success: in 25 years, FC København conquered 12 Superligaen and 8 Landspokalturneringen, a loot a lot bigger than the one of their “cousins”. Where does this winning tradition comes from? The answer is easy: mainly, it comes from the hunger of win of the fans from the capital, who now can scream fiercely to be the danish football masters, and to represent a big slice of scandinavian football, jointly with few other elected clubs. The Sektion 12 guys’ commitment is truly praiseworthy, and definitly doesn’t seem to be over. To stay on Denmark throne is a concrete and common target for both club and fans: that’s the reason why being part of S12 became kind of a work, as for few other european clubs (Marseille, Legia Warsaw). Thomas Delaney himself, in a long interview published in 2015 from on the FCK‘s social, declared to be aware of being superior to Brøndby, as FCK is the club of the centre of the city. Footbola decided to get in touch with some exponents of the FC København’s world, in order to better understand the dynamics of this kind of supporting. Their sentences helped us understanding this wonderful reality, made mostly by loud chants and extreme tifo, but is also active on different areas, also outside the football stadium. Being a Løverne fan is infact a work you have to learn as a young boy. In this route we will discover how this works, with many other stuffs, and also the thoughts of some actual players from the club.
With the massive help of André Rothschild, FC København‘s video-producer, we had the chance to get numerous contacts to get as much infos as possible. The first one who was avaiable was Pia Ystrøm, responsible of Sektion 12‘s youth section. Yes, you have read well; a youth section where young fans of FCK can go during the matches, is an actual thing. The boys can assist to the match with or without their families, and they learn how to be perfect fans, and how to be useful in the FCK world. The collaboration of the true Sektion 12, allow the young fans to lead sometimes the chants of the whole stadium. To boost the presence of children in this beautiful world, the club often organize events before and after matches in the huge park next to Parken, where the little fans can talk to Captain Bongo (who also represent an ultras capo for the children) and get a pic with him.
This is what Pia told us:
“The idea to create FCKFCU 18 (the youth section of FCK fans) borned for the necessity of an institution for our teenager fans. Many boys, as soon as they turn 16 y/o, become members of the main Sektion 12, while some other rather stay with us for a couple of more years, despite their age. An official collaboration with the club allowed us to get a sector of the stadium, in the Nedre C of Parken, to the left of S12. In the last period we’ve also created a Facebook page, where me and few other volunteers answers to the most common curiosities and questions, and we keep updated our board with photos, events, and many other stuffs. In most cases I directly take photos and medias, also when we organize some special events, like barbeques or football matches with the club members. The “banner-painting day” is always a success, and we create our choreographies for the weekend directly with children. Everyone of our young supporters receive to the match some concessions with tickets or gadgets, and when I have some free time, I personally love to be present in the stand, working with some people to assure the children a good experience at the stadium. We also have some little books where children could find some lyrics of the main chants of our tifo, in order to collaborate with S12. I’m sure that our work is very important, mainly in order to create a passionate sharing-community; is always good to be at the stadium, but with some good little friends is even better. For our future ultras is fondamental understanding how much work is needed to create a show in every home match. I hope that at some point, few of my guys could enter in the club world as members of Sektion 12, or as volounteer, as I am. Our main target is to help FC København on the pitch, creating the best athmosphere on the stands, with our modern methods.
A big help in understanding the club mechanism came from N. from S12, an important member of Sektion 12. At the question on his relationship with Sektion 12, and on the shared ideas between fans and the board, N. wanted to further mark the big friendship between the club and the ultras. A synergistic collaboration always works, and particulary on this last year, everything went in the right place. Those are his words: “Sektion 12 is the cornestone of the active support fo FC København, and has already after 11 years become an integrated part of the club’s identity. As for many other European fan-bases, being an ultras is an all day-long commitment. Sektion 12 is dependent of FCK and FCK is dependent on Sektion 12. It’s the close relationship between the stand, the club and the fans that make us strong”. N. goes on explaining typical labors and satisfaction of an ultras in the city of København. “The best thing to experience as a fan, is when you feel like you make a difference for your team. Nothing is better than standing besides your best friends on stadiums all over Europe to experience this feeling. For big matches and European trips a lot of time and money is used for preparation. A lot of guys work day and night for making the big tifos and other preparations”. N. says goodbye speaking in the end about common targets of the Sektion 12, and the last years development, framing past, present and future. “You never get tired of supporting your team, and I hope to see both the club and the fan scene continue to grow. That is not the same as being satisfied, tho. We will of course continue to work for many years to come!”.
Torkil Forsdal, journalist at the club since the first day back in 1992, got for us some players thoughts about the Sektion 12 work during the FC København time in Bad Radkersburg, in Austria, allowing us to enrich this article with some sentences from the protagonists of FCK. Below, you’ll be able to find the thoughts of Rasmus Falk-Jensen, Youssef Toutouh and Mikael Antonsson.
“What can I say? They are fantastic! They are really doing a great job, and we appreciate it very much. We can also count on their loyal support, and it means a lot to all of us. And it’s amazing to think of how much time and energy they spend, not only by coming to our matches and supporting us home and away, but also all the preparations for the tifos.” –Rasmum Falk-Jensen
“Sektion 12 is always there for us, no matter if we play at home or away. Not only in Denmark, but also when we play Champions League in Europe. They have been there for me since me first day in the club, and even when I was on loan in Esbjerg and we played a cup final in Telia Parken. It’s difficult to explain how much it means to me, but I really have a very high respect for them. And we players often talk about how many days and weeks they work in their spare time to create the tifos for our important games. Huge respect!” –Youssef Toutouh
“I have played in Italy, where the fans are very proud and passionate about their club. That is definitely the same in FC Copenhagen and especially with Sektion 12. They come to every game and give us a huge support, even away games, and they really impress me. It’s always easier to support a winning team, but I have been here for a long time, and they have always been there, even when we don’t perform at our best. For me, that really proves that you are a true and loyal supporter.” –Mikael Antonsson
“For FCK er klubben, hvor drenge bli’r til mænd. Giver hår på brystet og gør os til dreng’ igen.”
“For FCK is the club where boys become men. Gives hair on their chest and makes us boy ‘again.”
