B71 Sandoy
B71 is a Faroese football club, playing their home games Inni í Dal, Sandur.
Teams are made up of players from all the towns on the island of Sandoy and the official long form name is Sandoyar Ítróttarfelag B71.
Current squad
The Club history
Origins (1970–1971)
Although B71 is one of the youngest football-teams in the Faroe Islands, there has always been a considerable amount of interest in sports on the particular island from which the team fares.Football had been played well before B71 was established in 1970, but since sand-surfaces were deemed unsuitable for football, a team had yet to be formed.
In the late 1960s, two of the island's towns, Sandur and Skopun, started to compete. There were no goals, so instead they used two rocks each, representing goalposts. This rivalry between two of Sandoy's biggest towns went on for several summers, bringing in truckloads of people from Skopun, even though cars had yet to be accessible to the common man.
At around the same time, a new school was being built on Sandoy, where there also would be built a field on which to play sports. As a result of this, people started talking about forming a new team and on New Year's Day 1970, a sports team was established. The preliminary year, the team was called Sand, since only players from the town of Sandur were fielded. But the following year the team's name was changed to B71. Since players from the entire island wanted to be a part of the team, it no longer seemed fitting to name the team after just one town.
The first year only two teams were fielded. One senior team, playing in, what in those days was referred to as Meðaldeildin and one boys-team.
The Early Years (1972–1985)
In the beginning, B71 took baby-steps towards their eventual greater years in the late 1980s, early-to-mid-1990s. Players like Eli Hentze, Torbjørn Jensen, brothers Róin and Jóan Petur Clementsen, and many more, were still playing in the youth divisions, and would not feature prominently until they came of age in the second half of the 1980s.Faroese Champions (1986–1989)
Nothing really spectacular happened until B71 became 3. division champions in 1986. Two years later, in 1988, they won the 2. division and then, remarkably, they became 1. division champions in 1989, without losing a single game that year. When all was said and done, B71 ended up with a resounding 31-point tally, as opposed to a more modest 22 points by runners-up HB, who, coincidentally, were pummeled 6–2 in the final match of the season against none other than, B71.B71's success has, in later years, been attributed largely to the successful blend of a Polish influence, consisting of coach Jan Kaczynski, robust midfielder, turned coach, Piotr Krakowski, goalkeeper Waldemar Nowicki, and uniquely solid local players, including, Eli Hentze, Ib Mohr Olsen, Páll á Reynatúgvu, Torbjørn Jensen, brothers Róin and Jóan Petur Clementsen, and many more.
B71 also reached the final of the Faroese Cup in 1989. The initial match resulted in a 1–1 draw, but they ended up losing 2–0 after the replay.
In the space of 3–4 years B71 had gone from being an obscure 3. division side, to Faroese 1. division champions.
Relegation shocker (1990)
B71 were unable to defend their title the following year. Instead, everything ended in catastrophe. Rather than posing a title challenge, B71 were relegated, forced to spend at least a year in the second-best division. But B71 were promoted the next year.The infamous Faroese Cup finals (1993–1994)
Although B71 continued to pose a threat in the Faroese top-division during the early 1990s, they never captured the league trophy a second time. Instead, focus turned to the Faroese Cup, where B71 had even greater success during their reign as one of the top sides in Faroese football.B71 reached the finals in two consecutive years. The first time in 1993 against HB who they beat 2–0, winning the trophy for the first and only time so far, and again the year later, in 1994 where they lost 2–1 against KÍ.
Relegation/Promotion saga (1996–2006)
B71 went from finishing fourth in 1995 to finishing eighth in 1996, and subsequently finishing bottom of the league a year later. This meant being relegated to the second division, only to gain promotion in 1998.Instability tainted the play of B71, who, in spite of this, avoided relegation for a couple of years, until they finally went down in 2001, after having lost the relegation playoff against Skála.
B71 would have to wait until the 2006 season before regaining promotion again, to what had since been renamed Formuladeildin, for the fourth time since 1988.
Rise of the women's game
During this time, when the B71 men repeatedly disappointed, it was the women's team that shone. Winning matches was a daily occurrence for the women of B71 through much of the 1990s.The youth squads of B71 also seemed to produce quality players, greatly due to the hiring of youth-coach Martin Kúrberg who stayed with B71 for many years.
Several of the players from the youth-ranks would become regular B71 players, but the women's team, despite a successful start, declined until B71 were unable to enter a team to the women's competition altogether. Efforts have since been made to resurrect the team, but they have yet to replicate the success of B71's Golden Girls.
B71's Resurgency (2007)
B71 were touted as sure relegation candidates before the 2007 season, even before the first match, but halfway through the season, B71 had proven all of the pundits wrong, with results such as a 0–3 away win at holders HB, a 1–0 home win against B36 and a 4–2 away thrashing against title-contenders EB/Streymur. At the end of the season B71 were well out of relegation danger and in the safe-zone.Pre-season row, relegation and manager-shifts (2008–2009)
The 2008 season was kicked off with B71 once again being named underdogs, but this time B71 provided few surprises. Instead they went on a losing streak, only to salvage the first half of the season on the finishing line, when they played convincingly and won three of their last matches.B71 had been unsettled pre-season, with the departure and absence of many key-players. The most prominent of which was one Magnus Olsen. There was much controversy and tension between B71 and B36 regarding the player in question. Allegations of tapping up and player-poaching echoed from the B71 camp, while B36 kept refuting the claims, suggesting that the B71 board had been notified of the club's interest in Magnus.
This resulted in many appeals and re-appeals to the highest footballing authority in The Faroe Islands, FSF. B71 were eventually deemed to have no case and Magnus Olsen's much coveted player license was transferred to B36.
Apart from Magnus Olsen, players including Hanus Clementsen, Jóhannis Jensen and Clayton Soares were all ruled out, while successful defender Anders Rasmussen had left, during pre-season.
Three games into the season, B71's talented young winger Rasmus Nielsen was injured in a bout with Fróði Benjaminsen and would be out for the entire first half of the season.
The second part of the season was considered somewhat better than the first, with the team playing better football and producing fair results, but in the end they came up short with a meager 22 points. Despite the low point tally, B71 did have slim chances of avoiding relegation right up until the second-last match of the season, when they lost 0–1 at home against Víkingur.
Since the relegation became a reality, two key-players from the B71 squad signed with different clubs. Goalkeeper Símun Rógvi Hansen and talented midfielder Gudmund Nielsen, both 21, signed with HB and champions EB/Streymur, respectively.
In addition to this, winger Rasmus Nielsen left during the break, to play for, then, newly promoted Tórshavn side, AB, while three of B71's four Brazilian players were released, leaving Clayton Soares as the only Brazilian to reprise his role in the team.
At around the same time, coach Eli Hentze announced he had made the decision to step down from coaching B71's first-team. He was later replaced by Frankie Jensen, who hales from Sandoy, but lives in Tórshavn.
Subsequently, it was announced that Frankie Jensen had been released from his contract, and Eli Hentze was appointed new head-coach, for the third time in his career and at the end of the 2009 season, Eli Hentze stepped down, and former 07 Vestur coach, Piotr Krakowski, succeeded him. Appointing Piotr Krakowski has been dubbed coming home, by the media, for the highly rated coach, because of his affiliation with the team in the 1990s.
B71 had, before this, clinched promotion to top-flight football, on the second to last match-day of the season, after a single year in 1. Deild
Relegations (2010–2013)
B71 managed to keep themselves up in the 2010 season, finishing 8th, but had a torrid time during the following 2011 season. Efforts were made to sign foreign players Tijani Mohammed and Joseph Bassene as well as re-sign previous B71 players such as goalkeeper Símun Rógvi Hansen and Serbian defender Bojan Zivic. This didn't seem to have the intended effect and the team was on a terrible losing streak going into the second half of the season. Ghambian-born Dane Bakary Bojang and Andrezej Bednarz from Poland were recruited to try and salvage an otherwise miserable season, but to no avail. Despite slightly improved results, B71 finished dead last with only 11 points from 27 matches.Being relegated to second-tier football didn't help results either. Most of the players from the previous season left the club, leaving only young players to pick up the pieces. B71 finished just above relegation in eighth place in 2012 and could not improve a year later, finishing last for the second time in three years. This meant a return to third tier football for the first time since the initial promotion in 1986, 28 years ago.