Saturday 3rd June 2023 ko 13:00

Ettan Norra

SOLLENTUNA FK 1 (Dejene 57)

NORDIC UNITED 2 (Shhab 51 60)

Att 116

Entry by donation

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.

The start of Saturday morning on the Swedish Hop was a bit of a mystery to me. We were based in a quite superlative hotel more or less adjacent to Sollentuna railway station, with a game at Sollentunavallen, no more than half a mile away at 13:00, so why was the Swedish Hop party all in reception at 9:30 and ready to go?

The answer of course was organiser Kim Hedwall. He took the view that since we had a couple of hours to kill, we ought to take in a little Swedish culture. We headed south to Sundbyberg, just north of Solna, and somewhere we visited for a game during the infamous third “Wet” hop. Here we visited Sundbyberg the place, and first stop was a Konditori. 

If the trip to the Restaurang Pizzeria Grande the previous evening was a slice of Swedish culture so was this. A Konditori is part cafe, part coffee shop and part cake shop. But that description doesn’t really do it justice, Sweden does bakery really well- Mary Berry take note!

We then headed along the street and I think I wasn’t the only one of the party to be surprised to be shown into a “Loppis” a secondhand shop, I sensed the thought, “Why here?” And while I’m not sure we’ll ever repeat the experience, it was certainly interesting, most of us walked out with something, and Robyn and I bought a Dalahorse for a tenth of what we’d seen priced in Gamla Stan a day or two before. Sometimes the jigsaw pieces don’t immediately fit together, but they do eventually.

We headed back north to a ground I’d visited back in 2008 when Kim was stadium announcer at the ill-fated Råsunda IS who provided the opposition in a Division One Norra game at Sollentunavallen. Sollentuna’s assistant manager was former Arsenal and Sweden legend Anders Limpar but such is the Swedish psyche that no one paid any attention to his fame whatsoever! Limpar’s charges won easily and poor Råsunda now prop up Division 6. 

But the Sollentuna I saw then, and at another club that went backrupt, Akropolis was a different animal to the Sollentuna club of today. Sollentuna United was founded in 2006 by the merger of Turebergs IF and Edsbergs IF with new club taking the place of Turebergs in Division 2 Norra Svealand in 2008. In 2013 Sollentuna United merged with Sollentuna Fotboll IF to create today’s club. Look out for the Turebergs signage by the scoreboard as a nod to the past. 

Sollentunavallen is certainly spectacular, and not just because of the bright blue running track! In the background is the lake, well not technically a lake, Edsviken is an inlet of the Baltic sea and a national park to boot. More succinctly it was a reason why when Kim stated we were heading here we knew we were on to a winner. 

There was something about the club that has always made Kim and I think. For this season Sollentuna FK have decided to waive their normal entry fee of 100 sek (approx. £7.15) to try drum up local support, but ask for donations via Swish, a mobile paymemt App.  As organisers what do you do under those circumstances? Swish only works with a Swedish bank account, so there was no way for the British to make a contribution, but it would have been straightforward for us to have walked in and watched for free. 

Kim made a contribution for the entire party, and the goodwill that generated was obvious. We were welcomed by the chairman, given a club sticker and treated to “Fika,” a coffee and a cinnamon bun. They even lent us a football for another Swedish Hop tradition, the penalty shootout on the second pitch- if there’d have been another game there I would have been tempted! I thought back though to Swedish goalkeeping legend Ronnie Hellström who’d judged such a competition during our time in Trelleborg. Sadly, Ronnie died in February 2022 of cancer. 

Again, we saw plenty of hoppers above an beyond what we’d seen the previous evening. One tried to convince us to head to Skytteholms IP after this game. I like the home of Vasalunds IF in Solna but the hop has visited there twice, once on the very first hop in 2007 and again in 2013 for Athletic FC we don’t really need a third visit do we? And certainly not with Kanalplan IP on the agenda too..

Now my regular reader will know what happened next. Friendly club, lovely people, yes, I jinxed them. Not that there was anything wrong with Södertälje- based Nordic United, they did enough to win, with Shergo Shhab producing a performance that was far more than just his two goals. But as we made a sharp exit to head south, I did feel sorry for Sollentuna FK, they could have got something more from this game. It was just my malevolent influence.