SK Brann

SK Brann (most often called Brann or SK Brann Bergen in international contexts) is a Norwegian football club, founded 26 September 1908, from Bergen. Brann has been in the Norwegian Premier League Tippeligaen since 1987 but was relegated at the end of the 2014 season. They play their home matches at Brann Stadion where they had a record-breaking 17,310 in average attendance in the 2007 season. In October 2007, Brann won the series for the first time since the 1963 season.

Overview

As the biggest club in Norway's second-largest city Bergen, Brann is historically one of the major clubs in Norway in terms of public interest, and hence there are high expectations for the club every season. Brann won their first Norwegian Premier League titles in 1961–62 and 1963, but after this Brann was involved in the race for the league title only in seasons 1974–76, 1990 and 2006. In 2007, they reclaimed the league title and thus ended an 44-year-long waiting period.

Despite the limited success, the club has never failed to spark considerable interest from the Norwegian media and keeping an epidemics of football hysteria continuously running in Bergen. Moreover, Brann have regularly been winners and runners-up of the Norwegian Cup. The club reached the quarter-finals of the Cup Winners' Cup in the 1996–97 season.

2011 SK Brann season

The 2011 season was SK Brann's 103rd season and their 25th consecutive season in the Norwegian Premier League.

Information

Squad

First team

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

Out on loan

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

Youth squad

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

Team kit

The team kits for the 2011 season are produced by Kappa and the main shirt sponsor is Sparebanken Vest. Other sponsors featured on the kit are BKK (shoulders), JM (chest), AXA (left arm), Chess (upper back), Norne Securities (front of shorts), Coop Obs! (back of shorts) and Tide (socks). As of the 2011 season the Norwegian FA has made it compulsory for all Premiership teams to feature player names on the back of the shirts. On Brann's shirts the player's names are printed below the squad number.

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.