Tampereen Pallo-Veikot

Tampereen Pallo-Veikot or TPV is a Finnish football club, based in Tampere. The club plays in the Kakkonen, the third highest level of football in Finland. It is the second largest football club in the Pirkanmaa region in terms of active members, with 1,600 members in 2005.

History

The club was founded in 1930 as a general sports club for workers. In the past there were also bandy, boxing and ice hockey sections, but nowadays TPV is purely a football club. In the 1960s TPV played three seasons at the highest level of Finnish ice hockey.

Before the 1950s the clubs of Finnish Workers' Sports Federation played in their own leagues that were not connected to the Football Association of Finland. Tampereen Pallo-Veikot won the Finnish Workers' Sports Federation championship six times.

TPV later joined the Finnish FA and competed at the highest level in the top tier of the Finnish football league system for five seasons in 1971, 1993–1995 and 1999. The most successful year was in 1994 when the club won the Finnish Championship, but the next season they were unfortunately relegated to the Ykkönen. In 1999 the club regained its Veikkausliiga status, but this only lasted for one season.

In July 1998 plans were implemeted to merge TPV and the other local Tampere club FC Ilves. The new club Tampere United inherited TPV's place in the Ykkönen and soon gained promotion to the Veikkausliiga. However both the existing clubs have continued as independent entities although Ilves now participates in the lower divisions.

Season to season

Current squad 2010

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

External links

• Official website