Last weekend, I did something I’d not done since early March 2020. At that time last year, I went to watch Farsley Celtic FC play a particularly uneventful match against Hereford FC in the National League North (level 6 in the football pyramid of England). A friend commented that the lack of interest shown on the pitch made this feel like an end of season game where neither team have anything to play for. Two weeks later, it was the end of the season for most organised football in the UK due to new Covid-19 regulations and a significant chunk of my social life disappeared…..
Fast forward then to Sunday the 21st of November 2021, 20 months later. I finally went to a ticketed football match to watch my Swedish team Hammarby play at Stora Valla, the home of Degerfors Football Club. Degerfors, who have a good history of European football upsets in their past are, at the time of writing, in danger of dropping from the Allsvenskan (the Swedish Top Division) back to the Superettan (“The Super One”) from where they were promoted in late November 2020 – the football seasons in Sweden run roughly April to late November/early December because of the weather of course and have some quirks such as the Swedish Cup taking place over two seasons (qualifying matches in the previous year’s season and league and then knockouts in the current) to fit in with the European Competitions that start in late summer. With me so far? Good.
Having been frisked by helpful staff who discover ingenious methods of attempts to smuggle in 330ml cans of beer (inside winter coat hoods, etc) and with my phone ticket scanned, I find myself on the Bortastå (away standing area) back amongst the Bajen (nickname for Hammarby) fans for the first time since August 2019 and immediately a great deal of the anxiety that has hit me for the past year and a half is defused – I am amongst a community of like-minded folk once again. It’s hard to describe in words how I feel at this moment, but joyful is fairly close and ecstatic is another one. I am back in a football ground at last and Degerfors is my most “local” side, but I am here to watch Hammarby, a club I have had ties with since 2007, a year or so before I first lived in southern Stockholm in 2008.
Hammarby’s fans are hugely welcoming and extremely passionate about the club and the atmosphere in the away end is electric and the singing doesn’t stop, it rarely ever stops, even if the football on display is, which it has been a few times over the past 14 years of me watching, shite. Hammarby were one of the instigators of European football culture idea(l)s into Swedish football and come into this match needing to win to keep up the challenge for 3rd place and qualifying matches for next year’s Europa Conference League. Hammarby played in this competition this year up to the very last qualifier second leg and went out on penalties (I had to “watch” these on a computer updating text as my video signal had crashed. Hammarby had won the Swedish Cup on penalties this season in a drab final, so maybe some karma was being evened out).
So, to the match. It doesn’t take too long for Hammarby to take control after some promising early play from Degerfors, but once “the most Viking looking of Hammarby’s players” Bjørn Paulsen’s header ends up in the net from Hammarby’s first corner, the 3 points are fairly secure. I never ever really feel confident enough to say these things out loud or sometimes think them, but I get a feeling that Hammarby will score a few goals today.
15 minutes later Paulsen runs from defence on a Beckenbauer-esque mazy run which ends up with the final defender taking his legs and striker Selmani slots home the penalty 12 minutes before half-time and the points are definitely secured. I can now relax a bit more and enjoy the dominance of the second half as Paulinho follows up a saved shot to make it 3-0 and Ludwigson, who is playing left back or left wing (he’s a striker, but has played in midfield too this season and never stops running all match), squeezes a fourth goal from the acutest of angles.
The singing increases in volume and the air temperature drops to around -4C at 1630, with the sun down an hour ago. Movement and jumping around makes sense in this weather, although the makeshift metal terracing occasionally feels like it’s going to give in and I am transported back to Hammarby’s old ground “Söderstadion” in April 2008 where there was a wooden standing terrace that seemed to jut out over the inner motorway and had 5 cms of snow and a ludicrous scoreline of 5-3 to Hammarby v Sundsvall, which had odds of 474-1. That fact is engrained in my mind for some reason.
Degerfors nick a goal in the last minute, but this is a solid team performance and away supporters travelling west towards Norway (probably just me) and east towards southern Stockholm, go home in good cheer, not least because the queue for beer during the match was always long. Fellow strugglers Halmstad also lost so Degerfors still have hope, but the Halmstad result didn’t help as Elfsborg in fourth place took the points and lie 3 points clear of Hammarby. It looks like we’ll have to win the Svenska Cupen again if European football is to be coming back to the Tele 2 Arena in 2022……..
You can read more about Hammarby (in Swedish) here - https://www.hammarbyfotboll.se/ and Degerfors FC (also in Swedish) here - https://www.degerforsif.se/ - let a well known browser badly translate it for you ;-).
PS I am missing massively all my mates who I go to footy matches with in the UK. I will be back next year to talk rubbish on poorly maintained terracing in early 2022, Covid situations permitting. Love you all and keep sending me pictures of the grounds and matches you are at. It makes an old man very happy…….
