Kiffen

History

Kiffen football is known as the Mustat Hurmurit (Black charmers). The name comes from the late 1920s when the black coloured jersey was first introduced bu Kiffen bandy team. Kiffen had two representatives, Ragnar Wickström and Lars Schybergson, in the Finnish football team at the Stockholm Olympics in 1912. The club then won the Finnish football championship (Mestaruussarja) in 1913, 1915 and 1916 in the years prior to Finnish independence in 1917. Kiffen's last championship win came much later in 1955.

The decline in Kiffen football set in a decade later when the club were relegated from the Mestaruussarja and then a further relegation from the Suomensarja (Finland League), the second tier, followed in 1965 to the Maakuntasarja, the third tier. Fortunes fluctuated in the late 1960s and early 1970s before the club made its last appearances in the Mestaruussarja in 1977 and 1978. Among the players representing Kiffen at that time were Erkki Alaja, Juha Dahllund, Kai Haaskivi, Atik Ismail and Reima Kokko.

The following year in 1978 Kiffen had dropped to the Ykkönen (First Division) and in the subsequent years the club have not reached second-tier football. Over the last 30 years the club has fluctuated between the Kakkonen (Second Division) and Kolmonen (Third Division).

In 1982 and 1983 Kiffen's ladies team reached the Finnish Women's league championship qualifiers and from 1984 until 1989 played in the Premier Division after which the team withdrew with their divisional place being inherited by MP Mikkeli.