Pesäpallo club from Imatra, Finland
Imatran Pallo-Veikot (lit. "Imatra Ball-Brothers") is a Finnish sports club from Imatra. It was founded in 1955. Imatran Pallo-Veikot has participated in many sports in Finland over the years. The club's main successes have been in pesäpallo. Imatran Pallo-Veikot is playing in the top-tier Superpesis.
Imatran Pallo-Veikot has won the men's Finnish Pesäpallo Championship (Superpesis) four times in years 1977, 1978, 1986 and 1991. The home ground of Imatran Pallo-Veikot is the Ukonniemi Stadium.
History.
IPV was originally founded in 1955. It was promoted to the Championship League in the autumn of 1958 and played in the main league continuously until 1996, with the exception of 1970. Imatran Pallo-Veikot was for a long time the flagship of Eastern Finland on the pesäpallo map and the most successful upholder of the Karelian pesäpallo tradition. Its reign lasted from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, during which time IPV won four Finnish championships, three silver medals and one bronze medal.
The first golden era came in the 1970s, when IPV won two Finnish championships, in 1977 and 1978, and one bronze in 1973. The second period of success began in 1986, when IPV won its third Finnish championship. After that, the team started to invest and IPV won first the silver medal in 1989 and 1990 and then the Finnish championship in 1991 with their all-time team. IPV won silver once more in the autumn of 1993.
When IPV was relegated from the Superpesis in the autumn of 1996, it went in search of a boost directly from the third-tier Suomensarja. It returned to the Superpesis in 2000. It survived the fall from the Superpesis in 2003 and was immediately promoted again, but in the autumn of 2006 IPV had to give up its Superpesis place for financial reasons.
In the 2010s, IPV was resurrected under the leadership of Jani Valkeapää. The club finished ninth for four consecutive years between 2017 and 2020, until 2021, when IPV was the biggest surprise of the season - first in the regular season and then in the play-offs, where they came within one shot of knocking out "Manse PP", who won the Finnish championship, in the quarter-finals.
Stadiums.
IPV has played on three different fields in its history. First at "Maneesi" from 1955 to 1978, then at "Linnala" from 1979 to 2015 and from 2015 at Ukonniemi Stadium.
Achievements.
Men's Pesäpallo
"Superpesis"
References.
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