Saturday 3rd June 2017 ko 11.00

Division 7 Sydvästra Skåne

A.C. KVARNBY 9 (Möller 10 35 Grubessick 22 Persson 29 68 Andersson43 Bengtsson 58 89 Hilveus 70)

KÄVLINGE G.I.F. 1 (Korac 53)

Att 27

Entry FREE

Programme FREE

In Trelleborg we got up and had a leisurely breakfast,  the inevitable crispy bacon, coffee and meatballs banishing the remains of hangovers, dang those pubs were good! The minibus arrived, as did Christian and Ditte from the tourist board, and they gently chided the driver for playing Wu Tang Clan on the radio; it was decided that ACDC was more suitable for 11 middle-aged men and one young woman from Britain….We set off for the furthest out ground on the hop in the suburbs of Malmö.

I suspect the suburb of Kvarnby is better known is Sweden for horse-racing, the  Jägersro track nearby has a famous race here annually, but this well-to-do district of Malmö has absorbed large amounts of inward migration over the years, just under 20% of the area has a non-Swedish background. Perhaps we didn’t stick out as as much as we thought!

The idrottsplats is a staple of lower-level football in Sweden. Roughly translated it means “All-sports centre” and the vast majority of Swedish towns, villages, and suburbs will have one. They’re a hub for the area’s sports, and as such you’ll tend to see an artificial pitch, running track and other sports facilities. They’re often not particularly aesthetically pleasing, favouring function over form, but are usually very well-used. Since we were in the southernmost part of Sweden this facility Bäckagårds IP, lacked the ice rink we’d been used to seeing in the likes of Stockholm and Gothenburg.

But unless we ever get the sort of numbers of hoppers we at GroundhopUK get in the UK, we’ll never be able to have sufficient clout to get the local FA’s to schedule fixtures so we only get pretty grounds. In any case, if you want a flavour of lower-league Swedish football, you need to visit an idrottsplats sooner or later. So much Swedish football is played at these places.

The cafe was open which proved popular, and positively busy when organiser Kim discovered they had a stock of AC Kvarnby badges for sale! We were being very well-looked after, the club had decided to produce a programme which was clearly for our benefit- it was entirely in English! That did make it easier to learn that the club is a breakaway from Kvarnby IK whose race up the divisions to Division 2 has left local players in need of a club!

And if this performance is anything to go by AC Kvarnby won’t be playing 9th tier football for much longer as this was as complete a disemboweling as you’ll see anytime anywhere. But as the youth teams replaced the adults on the 3G as we headed back to the minibus, the smiles on peoples’ faces were telling. Had Kvarnby enjoyed our company as much as we’d enjoyed being there?