Reserve teams in Norwegian football

Reserve teams in Norwegian association football play in the ordinary league system. They are always attached to their first teams with a "2" suffix, must play in a lower league than the first team, and cannot play in the Premier League or First Division. Furthermore, if a club's first team plays in the First Division, the reserves team cannot play in the Second Division either.

Controversy

Reserve teams have in general been criticized for fielding uneven teams from week to week, with many first-team players one week and more youth players the next. They have also been criticized for keeping smaller clubs out of the Second Division, meaning a more centralized football culture. In 2009 manager Ivar Morten Normark proposed to throw the reserve teams out of the ordinary league pyramid, and other managers like Dag Eilev Fagermo agreed. In a survey, 19 of 31 responding Second Division clubs wanted the reserve teams out, as did 30 of the 49 responding Third Division clubs.

Aalesunds FK

Aalesunds Fotballklubb is a Norwegian football club from the city of Ålesund, currently playing in the Norwegian Premier League. The club was founded on 25 June 1914. As of 2004, the football club had 835 members and several teams on both professional and amateur levels. These teams are the 1st and 2nd teams, junior team, and also several age-specific teams.

Aalesunds F.K. played their home matches at Kråmyra Stadium until the 2005 season, when they relocated to the new Color Line Stadium with an approximate capacity of 11,000 people. Boosted by the new stadium, recent success and general increasing attendance in Norway, Aalesund has gone from attracting crowds of approximately 1,000 to regularly selling out their stadium in only a few years. Their average attendance of 9,943 in Adeccoligaen 2006 became the new record for attendances at the second tier of the Norwegian league system.

The local supporter club for AaFK is called "Stormen", or "The Storm", with about 2000 members.