Holger Forchhammer

Forchhammer was born on 21 October 1866 as the son of Dr. Phil Johannes Forchhammer, a rector in the Aalborg University, later at Herlufsholm School, where he became a student of medicine in 1884, taking his master's degree in 1891.[3] Forchhammer was a reserve doctor at Kysthospitalet in Refsnæs in 1893–94, and two years later, in 1896, he became the head of the medical consultation room of Denmark's first hospital in the present-day meaning of the word, the Frederiks Hospital.[3] He was close friends with the doctor and Nobel Prize winner Niels Ryberg Finsen, and one of Finsen's closest collaborators in his first years, when he was struggling to gain resonance for his important ideas.[4] He thus became a doctor at Finsen's Medical Light Institute in Copenhagen in 1898, where he was chief physician from 1899 to 1912.[3] When Finsen become too weak to do anything, it was Forchhammer who, at the medical congress in Paris in 1900, struck the decisive blow for Finsen's light treatment.[4]

In addition to being a physician, Forchhammer was also a sportsman, developing an interest in cricket and football in the 1880s, two sports that at the time were still practically unknown in the country. In 1883, a group of students who had just graduated from the Frederiksborg Latin School moved to Copenhagen to study at the University of Copenhagen, where the following year they founded the Fredericia Studenternes Kricketklub (FSK), a cricket club so they could play cricket again.[5] Due to a collaboration with Herlufsholm School, where Holger's father was a rector, which revolves around the recruitment of talented players from that school, Holger Forchhammer and his brother Johannes were central figures in the foundation of FSK, with Holger becoming the club's first president.[6] When Kjøbenhavns Boldklub (KB) took the initiative to look at the different forms of football and their laws in 1886, Holger from FSK was asked to be involved and he accepted.[5] In 1886, Forchhammer, together with Frederik Markmann, Ludwig Sylow, and E. Wescher, translated the English association rules into Danish, so from then on rules such as offside and "hand on the ball" were used in Danish football.[7] These rules were first used in a match the following year, in 1887. Prior to this, the matches would be played with a mixture of rugby and football rules, so this translation was a big step in the development of football in Denmark.[7]

He played football with Akademisk Boldklub (AB), and he even helped the club win the Copenhagen championship four times in 1889, and in 1892–94.[3] From 1889 to 1893, he played in 22 matches. He was named captain in 1894, and back then, it was the captain who had the duty of dictating the tactics to be followed and making up the line-ups since the coach as we know him today did not exist back then, so he basically served as a player-coach, and as such, he represented his side a further 22 times in 1894–98, in which AB won the Copenhagen championship a further two times in 1895 and 1896.[8] Furthermore, he also refereed 11 first-division matches. This triple function as a player, coach, and referee with a total of 55 appearances made him the figure with the most first-division matches in a European league in the 19th century.[8] During the summer of 1893, he left Copenhagen, having finished his study of medicine, to take up his internship at a province hospital. He later returned to Copenhagen, where he worked as the head doctor of a large hospital.[8] His brother Johannes Forchhammer won the Danish championship six times with the same club, which is also a world record.[8] Since then, he became an honorary member of the club.[3]

In 1897, he was appointed as the chairman of the Danish Sports Confederation and sat in the post for two years until 1899.[1][3] He was just 31 years old when he took office, thus being the youngest chairman of DIF to date.[1]

From time to time, Forchhammer attended parties organized by AB, where he enjoyed himself with his old clubmates such as lecturer Carl Andersen and ophthalmologist Niels Høeg, but despite the big age difference, Holger Forchhammer still understood how to get along with the club's young people, not in the sense that he immediately became good friends with them, but he had a great understanding of the importance of sports for the youth.[4] He became known for his great work in promoting children's and young people's access to sports.[1] Forchhammer was a member of the executive committee of the Association for Copenhagen Playgrounds.[3]

In 1920, at the age of 54, Forchhammer was included in the Danish squad that competed in the football tournament of the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp.[2] This happened because the squad itself had 20 players, so the final list contained 2 more names to fill all 22 places, Kristian Middelboe, who had already retired and was representing the Danish football federation, and Forchhammer, who was a medical doctor assisting the team.[9]

Forchhammer was a man without regard for personal gain and that was not afraid to risk his life for others, and as such, at the greatest risk to his own life, he was the soul of the rescue work when Vallø Castle burned in 1893, and was therefore rewarded with the rare recognition of the Medal for noble deeds, and has also received the Russian St. Anna order.[3][4]

He was married to the actress Berthe Forchhammer, and the couple had three children.[3]

He died on 19 May 1946 at the age of 79.[3] After he died, one of his childhood friends (K. Bülow) wrote this about him: "He was not the typical unapproachable head doctor type, but a good and understanding friend who knew how to gather everything and everyone around the great task: to lead Niels Finsen's ideas to victory for the benefit of suffering people".[4]