One of the most interesting, and convoluted, club histories in Norway takes us to the Southeast, and on to Sarpsborg where just over a decade ago a new force in Norwegian football came into prominence.
Football in Sarpsborg has a much longer history than what is represented with the creation of Sarpsborg 08 Fotballforening. Traditionally, the club Sarpsborg FK had dominated football in the region; SFK have won the Norwegian Cup six times between 1917 and 1951 and played twenty seasons of top-flight football in Norway. IL Sparta, another club in the area, won the Norwegian Cup in 1952 and played nine seasons in the top division.
Sarpsborg FK were relegated to the second division in 1974, and no other teams from neither Sarpsborg FK or any other clubs from the area played in the top divisions for two decades. In 1999, 16 different clubs in the Sarpsborg area joined forces to create one club that could compete in the top divisions of Norwegian football – they called it Sarpsborg Fotball, which replaced SFK in the league-system. In its first season the team was relegated from the Second Division and several clubs, including both SFK and Sparta, withdrew from the collaboration.
The clubs that continued with the collaborative effort once again formed a new club called Borg Fotball. In 2002 they won promotion to the second division, but were relegated back down at the end of the season.
A fresh start
Finally, in 2007 the last of the clubs – Sarpsborg FK – joined the collaboration again. This ended a long-standing, intense rivalry between the two larger clubs. To bring a fresh start into the project, the club colours changed and the team was renamed from Borg Fotball to Sarpsborg Sparta FK. However, this name remained a source of contention throughout the 2008 season and a new name was once adopted in 2009 and the club which it retains today – Sarpsborg 08 FF.
The new look and name of the club seemed to have little effect: the 2009 season started poorly for Sarpsborg. The first few months of the season made it seem that it would be a relegation fight for the club. Things grew darker when the Football Association of Norway docked three points from Sarpsborg 08 for submitting an unrealistic budget.
Bringing in a new coach for the second half of the season was a needed change for the team. Sarpsborg 08 were not only able to claw their way out of the relegation zone, but ended up with a fifth place finish. This allowed them to participate in the playoff matches to join the top flight of Norwegian football. In the semi-final match of the qualification, Sarpsborg defeated local rivals Fredrikstad FK. In the home match of the qualification final, Sarpsborg defeated Kongsvinger, but lost the second leg and remained just shy of top-flight football.
The 2010 season ended in promotion with a 4–0 home win over Alta sealing promotion to the Tippeligaen. The club’s first season in the top flight began in surprising fashion with a 3–0 win against Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s Molde. But after a good start, Sarpsborg was relegated back to the second tier. The club bounced back the following season with another second placed finish, and made the surprise move of appointing the former Sheffield Utd, Leeds, Middlesbrough and Leicester City striker Brian Deane as head coach, for his first job in management.
Deane led the club to safety via a relegation play-off victory over Ranheim, and then in the 2014 season took the club to a solid mid-table finish, and to the semi-finals of the Norwegian Cup.