Niilo Tammisalo – 118th birthday

15th October 1894 one of Finland’s most important sportsmen was born, this is his story..

He started out as a young man playing with HJK as a goalkeeper in 1911 and stayed with the club until 1926, in those years he won 7 titles,  1911, 1912, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1923 and 1925.  He represented Finland from 1919 – 1926 winning 29 caps. Amazing for a man who had to play throughout his career without glasses and in a time before contact lenses.

He also won 4 titles in the sport of Bandy in 1921, 1923, 1924 and 1928 all for HJK, he was also capped 8 times for Finland at the national level.

In Ice Hockey he won the SM-Sarja title in 1929 with HJK before then moving to Tampere and in 1931 he won the title with TaPa. It was after that that in 1931 he was part of the group responsible for creating Tampereen Ilves he was the first President, Captain, Coach and Player-Coach in the team’s history. He also won a cap for the Finnish National side.

He won a bronze medal in his final season as a sports player in 1934 with Ilves before becoming the Head Coach and leaving his player-coach role. Then in 1935 he guided Ilves to our first ever final, losing to his former side HJK.

It wasn’t until the next year that Ilves under the leadership of Tammisalo won the first of our 16 Finnish League Titles, in 1936 Ilves beat KIF.  Then the following year Tammisalo’s Ilves regained their title in 1937.

He then left the club and amazingly went to work with Finland at an international level in his 4th different sport. In 1939 he was the first ever president of the Finnish Basketball association and held that position until 1943.

He then went back to where he started and became the chairman of HJK in 1946. He died on the 5th of February 1982. He was inducted into the Finnish football Hall of Fame in 1993.

A truly legendary player for a number of teams, in a number of jobs in a number of sports the like of which we will never see again.