Friday 2nd June 2023 ko 20:00

Division 2 Södra Svealand

RÅGSVEDS IF 0

IFK HANINGE 1 (Ghozzi 60)

Att 139 at Hagsätra IP

Entry 75 sek (approx. £5.45)

The Swedish Hop’s cost of £450 included bed and breakfast for two nights, all transport in Sweden, together with entry fees and programmes for all games.  

When in June 2019 the 13th Swedish Hop finished in the little Skåne village of Holmeja, Robyn and I were engaged, the Swedish Hop had run for 13 consecutive years, and organiser Kim Hedwall, Robyn and I pondered how we’d factor in the 14th edition around our wedding! Obviously, a few things got in the way.

We actually had a hop lined up for 2020 before it became obvious that Covid restrictions would make that impossible.  We’d made the decision that we’d have to move the event back to Stockholm, the new Mayor of Trelleborg had withdrawn the assistance we’d got from the tourist office, but he didn’t last much longer after the decision had been made. He’d got caught up in a sex and blackmail sting and was forced to resign from both the mayoralty and as a politician too. 

But being home in Stockholm made sense for Kim too, with elderly parents to look after. We lost the 2021 event again to Covid, and the 2022 event to the uncertainties caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But Robyn and I visited Stockholm last year, spent a day with Kim and plotted whether we could make a 14th Hop work.

A lot had changed, and not just the fact that Sweden had become 95% cash free. Just like in the UK the prices of those staples of the organised hop, hotels and transport, had rocketed. Kim reckoned the hop would cost £450, I winced but we decided to run with it for two reasons. The first was simple, the hop could be scaled up or down according to how many people would join us. We could hire a car, or a minibus, or a coach, and I knew that if all else failed there’d be Kim, my wife Robyn and I! The second reason was more philosophical; I hated the idea that Covid could have killed off an event that saw my first football match abroad, Robyn and I’s engagement and the reason we have so many friends in Sweden. Put more succinctly I felt we owed it to the history of the hop to at least try.

The truth is we filled a minibus, and 4 more followed us around in a car but there were only 4 games that weekend that could be strung together. At least 3 of them were in the 3rd tier Ettan Norra, making sure no one could complain at a lack of quality. That said we did find a veterans’ game to pad out the Saturday, but even that came with its own difficulties. Robyn and I flew in 2 days before the event to catch up with friends, but sat on the tram heading to Solna on Friday morning I felt the anticipation, I know Kim did too!

But once we’d got everyone from Arlanda Airport to our base in Sollentuna, to the north of Stockholm everything fell into place. For one Kim pulled a real masterstroke with the hotel, we worked out that if there aren’t going to be any cheap rooms then you may as well get the best possible rooms! That and pick a hotel whose chief customer base is businessmen; their rooms are cheaper on the weekend rather than the other way round. We ended up with rooms that amounted to suites, and with a superb breakfast!

There were the traditional goody bags, the programme packs, and Swedish sweets. The guess the score competition like all of the rest of it wasn’t essential, and certainly hasn’t attracted a single new hopper over the years but having it all there felt like catching up with an old friend.

We had enough time at the hotel for those who’d been up early for flights from the UK to catch up on a little sleep before as afternoon turned to evening we headed south to Solna and to the one part of the hop that was entirely my idea- and that is the Restaurang Pizzeria Grande.

Kim’s idea was a pre-match meal at “Max,” that most Swedish of burger bars, and I’m sure all would have enjoyed the experience. But every Swedish suburb has something like the Restaurang Pizzeria Grande, combining a bar with pizza and sometimes a slightly more extensive menu. This one happened to be in Solna, close to where Kim lives, and some may remember it from the 2011 hop where we had “Offside” magazine in tow. After all who couldn’t enjoy a Planksteak, which originated in Hungary served in an Italian restaurant, owned by Serbs, but in Sweden? 

But of course there was football, and if you’re not familiar with Swedish football the mens’ game’s top flight is the Allsvenskan, with the Superettan below it. The Ettan Norra (North) and Ettan Södra (South) form the third tier with Division Two below that consisting of 6 divisions of 14 teams.

Once you’ve got the structure understood, you need to get used to seeing Idrottsplats and plenty of them if you want to understand Swedish non-league, particularly in urban areas. The term roughly translates as “Sports Field” and normally means a multi-sports ground, with multiple clubs and sports being based there, to the extent that I remember one idrottplats in Stockholm’s western suburbs that all but one club in one Division 6 called home!

Hagsätra Idrottsplats (IP) sits in Stockholm’s southwestern suburbs. Kim and I had visited the place back in 2012; the final destination of a two-week southern Sweden odyssey that shaped how I view Swedish football, and to a lesser extent how we wanted the Swedish Hop to progress over the next few years. Eleven years later I’ve still clocked up more Swedish grounds than Scottish ones!

The wonderful surprise of this particular Friday was who else was there. Mads of the Society of Swedish Football Statisticians is always good company- we’d spent the Wednesday evening enjoying a meal at the top of the Skybar in Hammarby Sjöstadt too. He had history here too, having learned to play ice hockey on the now derelict rink behind the left-hand goal.

Then Joel Segerdahl turned up, en-route to a house party. Joel produces quite wonderful documentaries for the Discovery Channel including many on grass roots football. I’d taken him around the grounds of last year’s Witney Hop as he was researching English non league at the time! I think it’s fair to say we blew his mind in rural West Oxfordshire, so it was good meet him again-  on his turf!

But then there’s Per-Gunnar Nilsson, the Kristianstad- based hopper whose Groundhopping.se website is an incredible primer for Swedish football, and wider into Europe. I must admit I do check where I’m thinking of going in Sweden against PG’s site! 

So as you can imagine, it was a pretty convivial evening, with people catching up and in some cases meeting for the first time. The game was nicely set up too, with a local derby with the hosts newly promoted into Division Two, but the visitors relegated into it. The game caught the imagination of the local youths, who threw a few firecrackers. I pondered whether the police would turn up, PG thought not, and it’s not often he’s proved wrong! We did smile when the constabulary arrived, the children scattered with the only evidence left the smell of gunpowder!

The game went by the form book, and I just about avoided 180 minutes without a goal here! In fact the only slight regret was that as a meeting of friends it was to be a brief reunion, everyone had different plans for the Saturday. We were soon back in Sollentuna and Robyn quickly spotted the hotel bar served Mariestads Export. It was just the two of us sat there, smiling at what had happened. Yes, it was expensive, and I understood why some people back home had opted out of coming. But at that moment, there was nowhere else I could have wanted to be.