| Full name | Sandoyar Ítróttarfelag, B71 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | B71 | ||
| Founded | 01.01.1970 | ||
| Ground | Inni í Dal Sandur, Faroes (Capacity: 2000 (300 seated)) |
||
| Chairman | Ragnar Fossdalsá | ||
| Head Coach | Piotr Krakowski | ||
| League | Vodafonedeildin | ||
| 2010 | 8th | ||
|
|||
B71 (Sandoy) (B71 being short for Bóltfelagið 1971 - literal translation: "Ball Club 1971") is a Faroese football club, playing their home games Inni í Dal, Sandur. The team is made up of players from all the towns on the island of Sandoy. B71 play in the Faroese Premier League, Vodafonedeildin.
As of January 24, 2011 Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
|
|
Although B71 is one of the youngest football-teams in the Faroe Islands, there has always been a considerable amount of interest in sports on the particular island from which the team fares. Football had been played well before B71 was established in 1970, but since sand-surfaces were deemed unsuitable for football, a team had yet to be formed.[1]
In the late 60’s, two of the island’s towns, Sandur and Skopun, started to compete. There were no goals, so instead they used two rocks each, representing goalposts. This rivalry between two of Sandoy’s biggest towns went on for several summers, bringing in truckloads of people from Skopun, even though cars had yet to be accessible to the common man.[2]
At around the same time, a new school was being built on Sandoy, where there also would be built a field on which to play sports. As a result of this, people started talking about forming a new team and on New Year’s Day 1970, a sports team was established. The preliminary year, the team was called Sand, since only players from the town of Sandur were fielded. But the following year the team’s name was changed to B71. Since players from the entire island wanted to be a part of the team, it no longer seemed fitting to name the team after just one town.[3]
The first year only two teams were fielded. One senior team, playing in, what in those days was referred to as Meðaldeildin and one boys-team.[4]
In the beginning, B71 took baby-steps towards their eventual greater years in the late 1980s, early to mid-1990s. Players like Eli Hentze, Torbjørn Jensen, brothers Róin and Jóan Petur Clementsen, and many more, were still playing in the youth divisions, and would not feature prominently until they came of age in the second half of the eighties.
Nothing really spectacular happened until B71 became 3. division champions in 1986. Two years later, in 1988, they won the 2. division and then, remarkably, they became 1. division champions in 1989, without losing a single game that year. When all was said and done, B71 ended up with a resounding 31 point tally, as opposed to a more modest 22 points by runners-up HB, who, coincidentally, were pummeled 6-2 in the final match of the season against none other than, B71.
B71's succes has, in later years, been attributed largely to the successful blend of a Polish influence, consisting of coach Jan Kazcynski, robust midfielder, turned coach, Piotr Krakowski, goalkeeper Waldemar Nowicki, and uniquely solid local players, including, Eli Hentze, Ib Mohr Olsen, Páll á Reynatúgvu, Torbjørn Jensen, brothers Róin and Jóan Petur Clementsen, and many more.
B71 also reached the final of the Faroese Cup in 1989. The initial match resulted in a 1-1 draw, but they ended up losing 2-0 after the replay.
In the space of 3–4 years B71 had gone from being an obscure 3. division side, to Faroese 1. division champions.
For some reason or another, B71 were unable to defend their title the following year. Instead, everything ended in catastrophe. Rather than posing a title challenge, B71 were relegated, forced to spend at least a year in the second-best division. The shame would, however, be short-lived, since B71 immediately bounced back and were promoted the very next year.
Although B71 continued to pose a threat in the Faroese top-division during the early 1990s, (never finishing lower than 4th) they never captured the league trophy a second time. Instead, focus turned to the Faroese Cup, where B71 had even greater success during their reign as one of the top sides in Faroese football.
B71 reached the finals in two consecutive years. The first time in 1993 against HB who they beat 2-0, winning the trophy for the first and only time so far, and again the year later, in 1994 where they lost 2-1 against KÍ.
After nearly a decade of mostly good results, it was inevitable that B71 eventually would have some misfortune. But no one would suspect that misfortune to last another decade. B71 went from finishing 4th in 1995 to finishing 8th in 1996, and subsequently finishing bottom of the league a year later. This meant being relegated to the second division, only to gain promotion in 1998.
Instability tainted the play of B71, who, in spite of this, managed to escape relegation for a couple of years, until they finally went down in 2001, after having lost the relegation playoff against Skála.[5][6] B71 would have to wait until the 2006 season before finally gaining promotion again, to what had since been renamed Formuladeildin, for the fourth time since 1988.
During this time, when the B71 men disappointed time and time again, it was the women's team that really shone. Getting the results and winning match after match was a daily occurrence for the women of B71 through much of the 1990s.
The youth squads of B71 also seemed to produce quality players, greatly due to the hiring of youth-coach Martin Kúrberg who stayed with B71 for many years.[7]
Several of the players from the youth-ranks would become regular B71 players, but the women's team, which got off to a stellar start, slowly declined until B71 were unable to enter a team to the women's competition altogether. Efforts have since been made in resurrecting the team, but so far they have been unable to match the success of B71's Golden Girls.
B71 were touted as sure relegation candidates before the 2007 season, even before the first match, but halfway through the season, B71 had proven all of the pundits wrong, with sparkling results, such as a 0-3 away win at holders HB, a 1-0 home win against B36 and a 4-2 away thrashing against title-contenders EB/Streymur. At the end of the season B71 were well out of relegation danger and in the safe-zone.[8]
The 2008 season was kicked off with B71 once again being named underdogs, but this time B71 didn’t provide many surprises. Instead they went on a losing streak, only to salvage the first half of the season on the finishing line, when they played convincingly and won three of their last matches.
B71 had been unsettled pre-season, with the departure and absence of many key-players. The most prominent of which was one Magnus Olsen. There was much controversy and tension between B71 and B36 regarding the player in question. Allegations of tapping up and player-poaching echoed from the B71 camp, while B36 kept refuting the claims, suggesting that the B71 board had been notified of the club's interest in Magnus.[9]
This resulted in many appeals and re-appeals to the highest footballing authority in The Faroe Islands, FSF. B71 were eventually deemed to have no case and Magnus Olsen's much coveted player license was transferred to B36.[10]
Apart from Magnus Olsen, players including Hanus Clementsen, Jóhannis Jensen and Clayton Soares were all ruled out, while successful defender Anders Rasmussen had left, during pre-season. Three games into the season, B71's talented young winger Rasmus Nielsen was injured in a bout with Fróði Benjaminsen and would be out for the entire first half of the season.
The second part of the season was considered somewhat better than the first, with the team playing better football and producing fair results, but in the end they came up short with a meager 22 points. Despite the low point tally, B71 did have slim chances of avoiding relegation right up until the second-last match of the season, when they lost 0-1 at home against Víkingur
Since the relegation became a reality, two key-players from the B71 squad signed with different clubs. Goalkeeper Símun Rógvi Hansen and talented midfielder Gudmund Nielsen, both 21, signed with HB and champions EB/Streymur, respectively.[11][12] In addition to this, winger Rasmus Nielsen left during the break, to play for, then, newly promoted Tórshavn side, AB,[13] while three of B71's four Brazilian players were released, leaving Clayton Soares as the only Brazilian to reprise his role in the team.
At around the same time, coach Eli Hentze announced he had made the decision to step down from coaching B71's first-team. He was later replaced by Frankie Jensen, who hales from Sandoy, but lives in Tórshavn.[14]
Subsequently it was announced that Frankie Jensen had been released from his contract, and Eli Hentze was appointed new head-coach, for the third time in his career[15] and at the end of the '09 season, Eli Hentze stepped down, and former 07 Vestur coach, Piotr Krakowski, succeeded him. Appointing Piotr Krakowski has been dubbed coming home, by the media, for the highly rated coach,[16] because of his affiliation with the team in the 1990s.
B71 had, before this, clinched promotion to top-flight football, on the second to last match-day of the season, after just the one year in 1. Deild[17]
Although B71 is, and always has been, considered a small club, even by Faroese standards, it has, nonetheless, had its fair share of kits. Lately there has almost been a new one every year, but there has also been a variety before this; some more loved than others, during B71 almost 40 year history. The primary B71 kit is yellow and blue. B71 has never had a kit yet which didn’t include either of these colours.
The first ever B71 kit was an all yellow jersey (except for the blue sleeves and neck-line), blue shorts and yellow socks. As B71 didn’t have any sponsors during its humble beginnings, the only decorative item on the shirt was the crest. The yellow colour of the initial jerseys was also a considerably lighter shade, than they would be in later years.
During the 2007 season, B71’s away kit was white, mixed with blue, resembling the Faroese flag.
The club’s crest shows the Faroese flag (a red, white and blue Scandinavian Cross) centred on a shield. On top of the flag, sits a yellow football, representing the primary colour of the team and the sport they play, upon which the team’s name is displayed.[18]
The crest has never been changed or altered in any way since 1970, except for the shade of yellow sometimes getting darker or lighter.
| Dates | Name | |
|---|---|---|
| 1986 | Finn Melin | |
| 1987-89 | Jan Kazcynski | |
| 1990–96 | Piotr Krakowski | |
| 1997 | Eli Hentze | |
| 1998-99 | Ivan Hristov | |
| 2000 | Per Langvad | |
| 2001 | Kári Reynheim | |
| 2002-03 | Tom Saintfiet | |
| 2003 | Waldemar Nowicki[19] | |
| 2004-05 | Ole Andersen | |
| 2006 | Dragan Kovačević | |
| 2007 | Dušan Mokan[20] | |
| 2007-08 | Eli Hentze | |
| 2009 | Frankie Jensen[21] | |
| 2009 | Eli Hentze | |
| 2010- | Piotr Krakowski |
| Competition | Matches | W | D | L | GF | GA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UEFA Cup | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 9 |
| UEFA Cup Winners' Cup | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 7 |
| TOTAL | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 16 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||