in 1949 the club reached allsvenskan for the first time after defeating halmstads bk in the decisive game of the season; during this time swedish leagues were played autumn–spring, on 31 july they played their first game in allsvenskan against degerfors if and lost 2–0, afterward, the later world-famous gunnar nordahl claimed that he had seen much worse newcomers, also this year, on 4 september kalmar faced malmö ff in front of 15 093 people in the audience; this is still the audience record on fredriksskans.