“Dear Harald,
Perhaps I have found out a little about
the structure of atoms..”
That, seemingly unremarkable, line from a letter written to
Harald Bohr from his older brother Niels, hinted at an idea that had begun to
germinate in the elder Bohrs mind. An
idea that would see fruition the following year in a paper titled “On the
constitution of Atoms and Molecules”. It
would herald the birth of Quantum Physics.
The Bohr brothers were born into a life of academia and
privilege, their maternal grandfather was one of the wealthiest and influential
people in Copenhagen, and their father, Christian, was the Professor of
Physiology at Copenhagen University.
With a constant stream of Denmark’s top academics frequent visitors to
the Bohr’s spacious apartments, the boys were immersed in the great debates of
the time. Both excelled at school,
particularly in mathematics and science, but were nevertheless unafraid of
physicality, a school friend at the time said that they were quite eager to
settle arguments with their fists. It is
no surprise that both boys had a love for the traditional gentleman’s game at
the start of the 1900’s, football.
Akademisk Boldklub (AK) was formed in 1889 by a group of
academics and football enthusiasts in Gladsaxe just to the north of Copenhagen;
the only condition you had to fulfil to join was that you had to be a
university student. However, they made
an exception for Harald Bohr who made his debut for the club in 1903, aged just
16. Described as a “skilful, creative
midfielder” the younger Bohr soon established himself in the AK first team and
was joined by his brother who played as a goalkeeper. Niels football career didn’t last long as
there were “smaller” things on his mind.
Harald stuck at it and soon acquired celebrity status, which came to a
head in the autumn of 1908.
The 1908 Olympic Games in London was to be the first truly
international football tournament in history.
The host nation was joined by teams from Denmark, Sweden, the
Netherlands and bizarrely two teams from France. Notable for their absence were Hungary and
Bohemia who withdrew from the competition due to political struggles that would
later escalate into the First World War.
It is indicative of England’s standing in the game at that
time, that 3 of the nations were coached by Englishmen. GB were coached by Alfred Davis, the
Netherlands were coached by the ex Liverpool, Everton and Blackburn inside left
Edgar Chadwick and the Danes were coached by the former Spurs, Man City and
Arsenal keeper, Charles Williams.
Denmark kicked off the competition in White City against
France B, Bohr scoring twice in a game that saw the Danes triumph 9-0. In the other quarter final the host nation
comfortably thrashed Sweden 12-1. Both
semi finals took place two days later at the same White City venue. Great Britain took on the Netherlands in the
first game winning 4-0 with all the goals scored by Glossop North End’s, Harold
Stapley. But it was the Denmark v France
A, semi final that was to prove the more eventful game.
Most football writers of the time were perplexed by France’s
decision to send two teams to the tournament and if the French thought that
they had a wealth of talent at their disposal they were in for a nasty
shock. One commentator was taken aback
by the smoking habits of the French commenting;
“They puffed away right
up to the start of a match, and in the interval had another smoke, finishing up
the day by repeating the practise.”
And so it was a, breathless, French team that took to the
field in the semi final determined to avenge their compatriots’ earlier
humiliation, but by the sixth minute the Danish forward, Sofus Nielsen, had
scored a hat trick and Denmark led 3-0.
The French pulled one back in the 16th minute, to no avail,
as the Danes went on to win the game 17-1, with Nielsen helping himself to ten
goals, an Olympic record which stands to this day. The French were so traumatised by the
humiliating defeat that they declined to take part in the Bronze medal decider,
their place taken by Sweden. The Dutch
beat the Swedes 2-0 to claim Bronze!
A crowd of 8,000 turned up on October 24th to
watch the final, again at White City, and Great Britain scored a goal in each
half to take the Gold. Everyone was full
of praise for the skill and passion of the Danes who were well deserved Silver
medallists. The official match report at
the time stating that the Danes;
“Displayed the greatest
vigour and determination, with far more pace and dash than they had against
France, and they played much better together than our own men”
Britain would retain the Gold in 1912, again beating the
Danes in the final, 4-2, but by this time Harald was no longer an
international. He played his last
international game in 1910, when Demark defeated an England amateur side 2-1.
In 1910 when Harald took to the floor to defend his doctoral
thesis, there was more football fans in the audience than mathematicians, which
gives an idea of how highly regarded the man was. In 1915 Harald became Professor of
Mathematics at the Polytechnic Institute of Copenhagen. He would go on to make a significant
contribution to Maths, particularly in the field of Riemann zeta functions and
in 1926 developed his Fundamental Theorem for Almost Periodic Functions. He would go on to become Professor of
Mathematics at the University of Copenhagen, a post he held until his death in
1951. In recognition for his skills as a
teacher, the annual award for best teacher in Copenhagen University is still
called the “Harald”.
AK were dominant in the early days of Danish football
winning the Championship nine times up until 1967,but the introduction of
professionalism in the ‘80’s would hit them hard. They enjoyed a brief hiatus in the late
1990’s winning the cup in 1999 and finishing as high as 3rd in ’99
and 2000. But demotion soon followed and
through careless spending and point’s deduction almost folded altogether. Akademisk Boldklub still soldier on in the 2nd
tier of Danish football and were saved from bankruptcy by the city council in
2012.
Niels Bohr would of course go on to become the more famous
Bohr founding the Institute of Theoretical Physics (now known as the Niels Bohr
Institute) whose ideas on Quantum Physics would become known as the Copenhagen
Interpretation. While Niels Bohr would
go on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics (one of only two Nobel Laureates who
were also goalkeepers, the other being Albert Camus), surely Harald has the
distinction of being the only mathematician with an Olympic Silver Medal?
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