Kaarlo Soinio

Kaarlo Soinio was a member of the Finnish gymnastics team at the 1908 Olympic Games in London that won bronze in the team all-around event. In football, he was a co-founder of HJK in Helsinki. With HJK he also won the Finnish championship in 1911 and 1912 playing as a defender and midfielder.

Soinio was the captain of the Finnish national football team in its first ever match in October 1911 against Sweden. He was also appointed captain in the pre-Olympic game in June 1912 and in Finland’s round one match at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm against Italy. In this game he was injured and missed the remainder of the tournament. It was to be his last game as an international. His younger brother Eino played internationally until 1927.

Kaarlo Soinio was the son of a butcher under the name Salin, a more traditional Finnish name, in 1906. After finishing secondary school in Helsinki he graduated as a gymnastics teacher in 1912. He worked as a gymnastics teacher at various Helsinki schools until 1918. Concurrently, he was editor-in-chief of Suomen Urheilehti, a weekly Finnish sports magazine, from 1913 to 1917 and as sports editor of the daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat from 1918 to 1957. Soinio was on the board of the Finnish Football Association (1910-35) and held various positions in the Finnish sports administration. He refereed one international match each in both football and bandy and acted as manager of the Helsinki ice stadium from 1955–60. In his youth, Soinio also excelled in javelin throw and rowing.

Soinio later worked as an officer at the Helsinki Police Department. There, he was promoted to the Police Chief’s Junior Assistant in 1922 and the Police Deputy Chief in 1924, and temporarily he was acting Chief of Police. He was forced to resign in 1932 due to political pressure and became manager of Helsinki’s Public Parks.

He translated, amongst others, Scouting for Boys into the Finnish language for the first time. Kaarlo Soinio never married and separated from the woman that he dated for 27 years.