KR Reykjavík KR Reykjavík are the oldest football club in Iceland, and for more than a century have played in black-and-white striped shirts borrowed from England's Newcastle United. The club was founded on 16 February 1899 as Fótboltafélag Reykjavíkur, established by Scottish emigrant Frank McGregor. A few years later the name was changed to Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur - the origin of today's short form, KR - because the Icelandic word knattspyrna was considered a more elegant term for football than the literal fótbolti. For its first decade, KR remained the only football club in Reykjavík.
KR won the inaugural Icelandic championship in 1912 and has since built an unquestioned position as the most successful club in the country's history, claiming a total of twenty-seven league titles along with fourteen Icelandic Cups, the first in 1960. In 1964, KR became the first Icelandic club ever to play in the European Cup, opening the door for Icelandic football onto the continental stage. Despite this rich history, the club also went through difficult years - in 1977 KR were relegated from the top flight, and by the time of the club's centenary in 1999 it had gone thirty-one years without winning a league title, missing out on the last day of the season on three separate occasions during that spell.
A revival came under former midfielder and long-serving Iceland international Rúnar Kristinsson, who as coach led KR to two league titles and three Icelandic Cups. The club play their home matches at the compact KR-völlur, opened in 1951 and holding just under three thousand spectators, though the ground was not used as the club's permanent home until the 1980s. Located in the Vesturbær district in west Reykjavík, the stadium remains a symbol of a club whose age-old rivalry with Fram Reykjavík has shaped the rhythm of football in the capital for more than a century.
