The Pace of Life

05 Friday Jul 2013

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Thursday 4th July 2013 ko 19.40

Pre-Season Friendly

PRIORS MARSTON 0

SOUTHAM UNITED 7 (Delahunty 30 Tennant 40 65p 74 Doherty 53 Stephans 78 79)

Att 42

80 minute game

Entry FREE

Programme- No ( you are joking!)

Priors Marston is one of those pretty-as-a-picture villages tucked away so you just have to stumble across them! The village is just about in Warwickshire, around 7 miles from Daventry, and is close to the Northamptonshire border.

The Church of England parish church is dedicated to Saint Leonard and was first built in the 13th century. The tower dates from the 17th and 18th centuries, but the building you see today was largely rebuilt in 1863.

The village school, The Priors School was originally a state school opened in 1847. In August 1996 it was forced to close due to a decline in numbers but after a month of intensive fundraising and planning the school re-opened. It still offered free education to village residents, and also accepted fee paying pupils from further afield. The school raised over £1.2m during 15 years of self regulation until September 2011, when it became one of the first of 22 new free schools to open in the UK. This returned the school to state funding but independently managed.

The Priors Sports Field lies on the edge of the village, on the Byfield Road. There’s a tennis club, but the place is by and large a cricket field that stages football in the winter. In the last few years that’s been even more the case as the Saturday football team withdrew from the Banbury and Lord Jersey League and now only play Sunday football, in the depths of Division 5 of the Leamington and District Sunday League.

With a team so obscure, the fixture attracted a gaggle of hoppers, who 10 minutes before the scheduled 7.00 kick-off looked nervous, especially the one who’d travelled all the way from Leatherhead for this game. Eventually the home players arrived in dribs and drabs, with the lack of urgency that the warm weather seemed to inspire. It didn’t seem to worry the referee, he just had a chat to the Southam players and warmed up lackadaisically.

I took time to explore the pavilion, taking care to avoid the ladies preparing a barbeque for the players. They’d been banned from serving food before half-time, but when was half-time going to be? I discovered that there are plans to demolish the pavilion and replace it with an altogether grander affair. The issue is a common enough one, funding. I have a feeling the old pavilion will be around for a while longer.

The game kicked-off a staggering 40 minutes late, and unsurprising both sides made a slow start, a mixture of legs getting used to playing, and the visitors playing what appeared to their under-18 side. In a truncated game it took a full 30 minutes for the first goal, Jamie Delahunty firing home, and after that the Midland Combination side passed their hosts to death, and the goals came steadily throughout the rest of the game. Ben Tennant scored a hat-trick from the unlikely position of left back, and quite a hat-trick it was! The first was a blast from long distance, the second a penalty, and the third a delicious curling free kick that did just enough to evade the keeper’s despairing outstretched fingers. Goals from Keiran Doherty and a late brace from Robbie Stephans sealed the straightforward victory.

In the final analysis, of course it really doesn’t matter, but the players got a little fitter, the managements learned a little more and the spectators enjoyed a pleasant evening out in the sunshine.

Johnson Rag

03 Wednesday Jul 2013

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Sunday 30th June 2013

Twinwood Airfield near Bedford

Entry £4

At the risk of a bad pun this place wasn’t on my radar, but Dad’s a proud member of the National Service (RAF) Association, and they organised a day out here. My job was to drive, and plug the postcode into the satnav.

Being ex-forces, and therefore organised, the trip included lunch at the RAFA club in Bedford before a cavalcade of cars made the short trip via the village of Clapham ( a point learned- I thought the only Clapham was in London!) to the airfield.

The base was RAF Twinwood during World War II and is best known for being the airfield where in 1944 Glenn Miller boarded a Norseman aircraft, bound for France, and was never seen again. It seems slightly odd that a museum to him is in the control tower, the last place anyone saw him, but it is a fascinating insight to the time and to a man who, at least initially many thought of as a coward, until it was proven that his concerts were so valuable to morale, it more than outweighed any potential use he would have been as a fighting soldier.

That however isn’t all that’s on offer; there’s more museums on the site, based around the time of the Second World War, including a reconstruction of a WAAF’s hut. That caused a few smirks amongst the veterans,

“We’d have never got away with the stove like this!”

“My blankets were better folded…” and so on.

For those of us with no memory of that time the Summer of 44 museum is a wonderful collection of the mundane, the scales, the pots and pans, and the posters of the time. On their own these things mean nothing, together and in context they offer a viewpoint to the past.

There’s also the only Wartime Fire Service museum in the UK here,  it takes the form of a 1940’s utility station inside one of the Nissen huts, and comes complete with fire truck!

A poignant section is the museum dedicated to aircraft recovery. You see the bent propellers and twisted engine parts, but what stops you in your tracks is the little photo of the pilot and crew with their ages. Few seemed to be over 25, it was something to reflect upon over a mug of tea in the NAAFI.

For me, as is the case with a lot of what I do, its the little things that resonate most with me. Be it the book on 300 ways to cook an egg, or the ARP warden’s hat, these are the things that with a little imagination put you right in the position of those people less than a century ago. That included the black edged postcard sent to inform a wife than in fact she was now a widow. That reminded me that in any war people on both sides suffer, and I have too many German friends to look at it any other way.

http://www.twinwoodairfield.co.uk/

Football At The Belmont

01 Monday Jul 2013

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Saturday 29th June 2013 ko 15.00

Pre-Season Friendly

WHITSTABLE TOWN 0

DAGENHAM & REDBRIDGE 4 (Dennis 21 Elito 40p Goldburg 75 Gale 85)

Att 301

Entry £8

Programme £2

With a mere 15 minutes to drive the six or so miles from Faversham to Whitstable I was pleased and thankful to have Martin Bamforth behind the wheel. We were fortunate, the roads were kind to us, but I was grateful to Whitstable programme editor Andy Short for reserving me a programme; they’d sold out just before I’d got there.

I’ve owed Andy a visit for some time; he uses some of the material on here in his excellent publication, but every time I’ve tried to visit the Belmont Stadium I’ve been thwarted, last time it was by the M25, so I ended up watching an eventful game at Sevenoaks Town. http://wp.me/p1PehW-18S

What Andy hadn’t told me is what a gem the Belmont is. The stand is a wonderful example of an Isthmian League stand, dating from the 1950’s. What makes that remarkable is that the club have only played in the Isthmian League for 7 years! It’s beautifully maintained, a classic of its kind and a must-visit for fans of the Isthmian League.

Of course there’s more to Whitstable than just the Belmont. It’s famous for its oysters, which have been collected in the area since at least Roman times, and in 1830 one of the earliest passenger railway services was opened by the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway Company.  In 1832 the company opened Whitstable Harbour and extended the line to enable passage to London from the port. The railway has since closed but the harbour still plays an important role in the town’s economy.

Perhaps the town’s most interesting quirk involves the football club itself, and I reckon it’s a wonderful pub quiz question too. On 29th May 1985 escaping fans were crushed against a wall in the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, before the start of the European Cup Final between Juventus and Liverpool. Thirty-nine Juventus fans died and the backlash saw English clubs banned from playing European football for 5 years, but what was the first club to be affected? The record books show it was Everton, the league winners in 1995 but in fact it was Whitstable Town, playing in the more humble Kent League! The reason was that Whitstable is twinned with Bochum in Germany and the two sides were due to meet for a pre-season friendly in Germany, but the ban made the game impossible.

Andy also managed to answer a question that really needed an answer. Normally only internationals and organised summer leagues are allowed to play football in June according to FA rules. It transpired that both Faversham and Whitstable contacted the FA at Wembley Stadium for permission, and the blazer-wearers simply delegated the decision to the local Kent FA. They had no objections so our two games went ahead, but I do wonder what would have happened if a host club outside of Kent had have asked.

The game proved to be a one-sided affair as the Daggers passing was too slick for their hosts, who defended manfully to keep the score respectable. The visitors stayed in League 2 by the skin of their teeth last season, and they looked a proven goalscorer short of being a good team. That person manager Wayne Burnett will find difficult to recruit, the club has one of the lowest wage bills in the Football League, the Daggers teams I’ve seen over the years have often seemed like an Isthmian League Dream Team. I suspect it will be another season of struggle for them, fighting as they always are against almost impossible odds.

Those are odd well-known to Whitstable and almost every small club, trying to squeeze a pint from a half pint pot each and every season. I’d been greatly looking forward to my trip to Whitstable and both the club and ground managed to greatly exceed my expectations. That’s another club whose results I’ll be looking out for, as a hopper you do tend to have a list of clubs to follow!

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines

30 Sunday Jun 2013

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Saturday 29th June 2013 ko 13.00

Pre-Season Friendly

FAVERSHAM TOWN 2 (Wilson 11 Rowland 74)

GILLINGHAM 4 (Millbank 15 Dack 25 Birchall 65 76)

Att c500

Entry £8

No Programme, old copy free (some others were charged £1)

Badge £3

It was less than 3 weeks since I finished off last season in Sweden on a joyous Swedish hop, but in that time I can honestly say I lost my edge. I know it seems daft, all I do is show up at a game, watch it and take a few pictures! But even during the planning of this one I felt I wasn’t on top form. I’d agreed to meet the undoubted star of the Swedish adventure Martin Bamforth, at the old Andover FC ground to do the Sealand game at Thamesmead, but we changed plans just as soon as we worked out you can get from Faversham to Whitstable in 15 minutes flat, making an unlikely double possible.

That feeling of unease was still there when we reached Salters Lane, I didn’t slide into my normal habits of knowing instinctively where to obtain the line-ups, über-hopper Peter Miles helped me out what that one. I even had to think about my camera angles!

Eventually everything fell into place and I began to appreciate my surroundings and the entertainment on offer. It just shows how easy it is to lose that state of unconscious competence!

There was a lot to enjoy too, the Kentish town is the cradle of the UK’s explosives industry. The first gunpowder factory was established in the 16th century, probably with investment from Faversham Abbey. At that time the monasteries were deriving good profits from their estates and were keen to invest in promising technology.

The town was the perfect location as it had a stream which could be dammed at intervals to provide power for watermills. On its outskirts were low-lying areas ideal for the culture of alder and willow to provide charcoal, one of the three key gunpowder ingredients. The stream fed into a tidal Creek where sulphur, another key ingredient, could be imported, and the finished product could be  loaded for dispatch to Thames-side magazines. The port allowed the finished product to be shipped to mainland Europe for use with minimum effort.

The explosives industry lasted until 1934 when owner ICI realised that war with Germany was likely, and that Faversham was in a vulnerable location to bombing so moved production to Ayrshire.

These days the town is a quiet market town, and the football ground hides itself amongst the trees midway down Salters Lane. Its a good example of the classic Isthmian League-style ground (the club lost in the Division 1 South playoffs) with the asbestos roofed main stand typical of many in London and its hinterlands. The burger bar was swamped with custom as the visitors, freshly promoted to League 1 brought a bumper crowd. They’d split their squad, with half going to Ashford United at 3, giving their more intrepid supporters a tougher job than Martin and I at the final whistle if they wanted to make kick off.

The hosts made an error in not doing a programme. Even if only half the crowd had bought one at say, £2 there’s £500 the club could have made, and it gave the impression that the club was better run on the pitch than off it.

Even though Gillingham had the luxury of changing the entire team at half time, no bad thing in the heat, Faversham gave the visitors a thorough test, and Wayne Wilson’s 11th minute free-kick was worthy of any stage. The Gills however, always had experience where it mattered, and it was no coincidence that 3 out of the 4 goals were scored by Bradley Dack, and Adam Birchall, both regular first teamers.

But of course these fixtures aren’t about the result, more about fitness, and assessing what works best. It was a decent spectacle, Faversham’s endeavours ensured that, but the last 5 minutes were memorable for arguably the best version of a phenomenon you only ever see when a reasonable number of groundhoppers attend a game.

I call it groundhopper’s itch, when with about 5 minutes left the hoppers slowly make their way to the exit, and hover by the gate. When the final whistle blows, off they scuttle, even if there isn’t another game to go to! On this occasion there was, and yes, I was there too, hovering by the exit with Martin already outside, in the car revved up and ready for the next adventure. That was a neat metaphor for the day, the season to come, and the hobby in general. Its good to be back!

 

The Nature of Things

13 Thursday Jun 2013

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With it being the close season, I thought I’d tell you a short story which I promise actually happened.

During my time living in Henley-on-Thames I got to know two middle-aged ladies. They’d married early in life, and now their children had left home, and their husbands had retired to life either on the end of a fishing rod or on the golf course.  They now had the time and the money to pursue their own interests and hobbies, and did so with relish! At times it was like watching teenagers, which of a fashion it was, after all, they were doing nothing more than what young people of today take completely for granted. They’d been denied this when they were young, and were simply making up for lost time.

On one occasion they decided to book a weekend hotel and show package in London, and took the train from Henley to Reading then on to Paddington. The trouble was that afterwards there wasn’t a suitable train home, so I got roped in to give them a lift from Marble Arch back home. On that short journey I learned a little of the human psyche.

I pulled up on Park Lane, and fortunately they were already waiting for me. After dumping their bags in the boot they clambered into my car, and I asked how the weekend went. Their responses surprised me.

“Well, the hotel wasn’t the best….”

“The breakfast was meagre…”

“The room was pokey.”

“The wine was expensive…”

“The seats (at the show) were quite a way back…”

And so it carried on all the way back to Henley, and the village just outside where one of the ladies lived. I dropped off there first as the second address was on my way home. I pulled up to the house and it was there I learned my lesson on human nature and how some people communicate.

The two ladies said goodbye, and as she got out, the first said, “Thanks for organising things …… I had a MARVELLOUS time!”

You see, some people only communicate by whingeing. The trick is to be able to pick when the whinge really is a whinge. I’ll never forget those two.

Joyous

10 Monday Jun 2013

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Sunday 2nd June 2013 ko 17.00

Division 3 Östra Svealand

BELE BARKARBY 3 (Tollerup 47 Samosky 50 Heneidy 66)

TÄBY IS 1 (Higgs 90)

Att 82

Entry, 3 monthly magazines, information sheet, badge and pennant included in hop

Plenty of sunburn and that horrible feeling of “Is this really the last game?” was in evidence, as Thomas drove the coach into Veddestavallen in Järfälla, to the north-east of central Stockholm. The Swedish hop visited another club in the area, Järfälla IF, on the second hop in 2008, and visited Täby’s ground Tibblevallen on the very first hop but watched IFK Täby, a lower level side.

The area can trace its history to the Stone Age and has some ruins from that time. After conversion to Christianity in the 11th century, Järfälla continued to be of importance in the Middle Ages as several important roads went through it, on a route from Uppsala to Stockholm used by pilgrims.

Its coat of arms, rather reminiscent of Preston North End’s badge, which depicts a golden lamb carrying an archbishop’s cross, can be traced from 1568, but was created in 1955. They may symbolize that Järfälla is situated on the road from the capital Stockholm to the seat of the archbishop in the nearby city of Uppsala.

The district of Barkarby lies within Järfälla, and is best known as being where the equestrian events were staged during the 1912 Olympics. The Bele football team was formed in 1929, but no one seems to know what the Bele actually means or even if it’s an acronym! They merged with Barkarby SK in 2001, and the club features Ice hockey and Innebandy, a version of ice hockey played indoors with a ball on wooden flooring.

For a small club, who have never played higher than the Swedish third tier, the club has a history of producing good players. Coach Putte Ramberg represented Sweden 27 times at football and once at Bandy (imagine 11-a-side ice hockey on a rink the size of a football pitch). Current Malmö FF head coach Rickard Norling started at Bele, as did Johan Mjällby whose career has included stints at AIK, Levante and Celtic. It made me remember a feature of Swedish football you don’t see in the UK.

Every player has a “Moderklub” or “Mother Club,” where he or she first started playing football. Many programmes, or football magazines will carry this information alongside statistics such as height, weight and position. For the Mother Club, there’s a practical benefit, as every time the player moves the Mother Club is paid a small fee, thereby rewarding their investment in the player, and encouraging investment in youth. I’ll leave you to work out whether the Premier League would allow such a system in England!

That investment in youth was there for all to see as we arrived. On a smallish gravel pitch a huge children’s tournament was just finishing off its group phase, and the finals took place as the first XI kicked off. It meant the queue for food and drink was a little longer than expected, but it did demonstrate the club’s clear aims of investment in youth, and later on investment in Veddestavallen.

At the moment, the ground consists of a rather bumpy grass pitch with the inevitable set of bleachers, an artificial pitch, and the gravel pitch. What sets the place apart from the vast majority of Swedish football grounds is that it isn’t under local authority control, a fact that the club are rather proud of. They see the future is being in Division 2 with all that entails, and there was none of the reticence we encountered at Hille, the day before. It was all rather refreshing, and it put what at first looked like a dull ground on the outskirts of town right into context. I for one will keep an eye on their progress! Mind you, I think many of the British contingent will remember the place for the multiplicity of cranes in the background, including one sporting a rather unseasonal Christmas tree!

Maybe it was my own tiredness, or perhaps the heat, but the first half wasn’t easy to watch. Neither side seemed capable of imposing themselves on the game, and it really was one of those game where you could have turned up at half time, and have missed nothing! Thankfully the second half was a vast improvement as Bele finally took control of matters and rattled in three goals to cement their position comfortably in mid-table with the visitors in real relegation trouble second-from-bottom.

From there it was a simple drop-off for the others back at Arlanda. On the way we dealt with all the little things at the end of a hop. One of those was the traditional collection for the driver, people never cease to amaze me with their generosity, but Thomas is a much valued part of the team, ever-present for the 7 years of this hop. He dropped us off back in Solna; Kim and I dumped our bags back at his flat then walked into Solna Centrum to grab a sandwich. We flopped down on a bench near the fountain there, ate and reviewed the madness of the last 3 days. As ever, we’ve learned, and we’ve got some great ideas for next year. We’ll have to work hard, this was a joyous hop, perhaps the best yet, due in no small part to all those who attended. We’ll announce the 2014 hop next March; don’t you dare miss it!

 

Big in Åkersberga

09 Sunday Jun 2013

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Sunday 2nd June 2013 ko 14.00

Division 3 Östra Svealand

IFK ÖSTERÅKER 0

BKV NORRTÅLJE 2 (Kiianlinna 55 Thorliefsson 63)

Att 145

Entry, Programme, Coffee, and Goody Bag – Included in hop

The Swedish Groundhop has plenty of history with the municipality of Åkersberga. The area of Stockholm county has seen us visit Rydbo, Roslagskulla, Vaxholm and perhaps most famously two visits to Åkersberga BK. Its a pleasant place on the Stockholm archipelago, and features several golf courses, and facilities for boating, equestrianism, fishing and other outbound activities. The area is linked to metropolitan Stockholm by the narrow-gauge, 891 mm (2 ft 11 1⁄10 in) Roslagsbanan railway. The 40 mile, 38 station system is the last narrow gauge railway in Sweden still in use for commercial traffic. Now I know my SL card is valid on it, I think I may have to give it a ride!

We’d watched Österåker as the away side at Sundbyberg on the 2009 hop when it rained virtually on every minute of the weekend! As we pulled into Åkersberga Idrottsplats I pondered the vagaries of the weather. Its was sweltering, and there was little or no shelter from the sun. Not wonderful and I was already sunburnt despite the cover at Skytteholms. Perhaps its an Åkersberga thing, both games at the Margretelunds BP home of Åkersberga BK were warm and sunny and its where on the second visit, I ended up as linesmen after the away team objected to the choice of club linesman. I remember remarking that I was beyond being corrupted as I didn’t speak the language! I suspect that incident would have been completely forgotton, but a football magazine called “Offside” were in tow for that hop, and the 13 page article included yours truly in action.

We were given a talk by a club official before the game, and there was more to the club than just the 3G pitch with the ubiquitous wooden bleachers. They used to play on the rather prettier grass pitch behind the clubhouse but were forced to move around 100m when it was discovered that the pitch was a metre or two too narrow and too short. It gave head organiser Kim Hedwall a bonus tick, which was just reward for bringing us to a game with a real edge to it.

Norrtäljie were top of the table and looked good for a promotion tilt. Österåker were third, and with what they believe is a team capable of promotion too. They have an interesting player in Armin Iranpak, whose father Safar Iranpak was a striker who played for Persepolis and the Iran national football team, before settling in Stockholm later on in life. He died in 2009.

It soon became clear that despite an obvious rivalry, the visitors were just that little bit sharper than the hosts. They’d brought a following too, including two elderly ultras brandishing a flag, and it added to a convivial atmosphere just after Sunday lunch. My problem was that it was a little too warm to watch, let alone play, and after so much football by half time I was beginning to flag a little. Salvation, however was at hand.

During the interval I bought a can of drink and an ice cream and sat myself down on the base of a floodlight when I became aware of a commotion at the bleachers. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but everyone seemed to be pointing in my direction. The root of it all was Elisabeth and Per Soderström from Åkersberga BK. They’d spotted from a Facebook post that I was local to them so decided to jump in the car and pay me a visit! The trouble is that they couldn’t spot me, so ended up trying to find the English who would point them in the right direction! Still they found me, and a week after the event I’m still touched, thank you so much, both of you!

It didn’t end there either, during the second half a player’s mother came up to me, and asked whether I was the bloke who once was linesman at an Åkersberga game? I turned out her son had played in that game and was highly amused when I commented that I’d send a player off for wearing pink boots. I don’t remember the comment, but it does seem true to form!

The game went the way of the form book, the visitors eventually finding two ways through the home defence. The second goal killed off home resistance, and one of our party was slightly chastised for helping our with the scoreboard when it hadn’t been immediately updated.

I felt for Österåker, even though the result was a fair one, as they were fine hosts. Mind you as the Soderströms proved, when you’re in Åkersberga, you are assured of a wonderful welcome. Another UK coach party now knows that now.

In Any Shooting Gallery

08 Saturday Jun 2013

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Sunday 2nd June 2013 ko 11.00

Division 3 Södra Svealand

ATHLETIC FC 0 

Sheaib sent off (dangerous play) 69

TYRESÖ 4 (Sevgili 12 38 Ashtari 52 Lithen 90) 

Nicho sent off (2nd booking) 60

Att 67 at Plan A, Skytteholms, Solna

Entry & Pennant, Included in hop

The Northern Stockholm suburb of Solna and I go back some way, in fact 7 years to be exact. The very first Swedish hop took in Råsunda IS playing at Skytteholms, or to translate, The Shooting Grounds, and the result was a highly entertaining 2-2 draw versus Gamla Uppsala, curiously where we’d travelled from on a warm Sunday morning.

Times change, and soon enough Skytteholms’ more famous neighbour the Råsunda stadium will be no more. The site of the 1958 World Cup final, and AIK’s home since 1937 is being demolished from the north to the south. Peter Miles and I took a few minutes to walk around the perimeter of the grand old lady of Stockholm, and we both felt sick to the stomach at what we saw. The new Friends Arena, is both necessary and a fine stadium, have a look here, but it felt like the cost was too high. The flats and offices to be built here will help pay for the new national stadium, but it’s a real shame some way couldn’t be found for the Råsunda to be retained, the 36,608 capacity was perfect for AIK.

Since the hop’s visit in 2007, Skytteholms has seen a few changes. These were mainly due to anchor tenant Vasalunds IF being promoted for their one season stint, 2009, in the second tier Superettan. Its now no longer possible to enter the ground from the other 3 pitches, the stand now sports seats bolted on to the former benches, and there’s a café area replacing the little hot dog booth in the side of the stand. The capacity remains at 3,000.

The ground was the first in Sweden to sport a 3G pitch, and with undersoil heating too! That’s now 4G and looked to be a superb surface to pass on. Athletic turned out to be an interesting bunch. Formed as a Turkish immigrant side in 2007 they’ve risen through the leagues rapidly and have replaced Råsunda IS as secondary tenant of the ground. Råsunda more-or-less folded two years ago, but the name was bought for their league position. The new Råsunda IS finished rock bottom of Division 3 last season, without a single point, and are now bottom of Division 4 Mellersta (Mid) Stockholm with 3 points. Another chunk of sadness for a Sunday morning.

It was a pleasure on a sweltering morning to shelter at the back of the stand and watch and remember multiple visits in the past. Life has changed a lot since 2007!

Tyresö were no less interesting than the surroundings. We’d visited them on the 2010 hop and were surprised on arrival at Tyresövallen to be part of 50 or so arriving when 1,500 were leaving. Tyresö are far more famous for their top flight ladies team than their male equivalent, the only similar set-up I can think of in England is Bristol Academy. On this occasion the only thing that they’ll be remembered for is the brilliance of their forward Roy. Or as he was recorded on the teamsheet, “Roy Person uppgifter Skyddade.”

I’m sure many of us recorded “Skyddade” when he danced through the home defence to notch his first, then were gently informed by Kim Hedwall that personuppgifter skyddade actually means Personal Data Protected; he was playing as a triallist! Clearly his identity isn’t that much of a secret, the Tyresö website has his name as Roy Sevgili, but his two goals put the game quickly beyond Athletic.

There was a dismissal on both sides, one deserved, Athletic’s Ali Sheaib was guilty of a dreadful challenge, but Tyresö’s Nicho looked to be the victim of mistaken identity for his second booking. It didn’t seem to make much difference, Tyresö were 3 up and scored again in stoppage time, just as our party were gradually heading to the exit in the corner. The great thing about a hop is there’s always another game around the corner!

The Longest Kilometre

07 Friday Jun 2013

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Saturday 1st June 2013 ko 18.00

Division 2 Norrland

STRÖMSBERGS IF 2 (Parling 34p Hägg 56)

SKELLEFTEÅ 0

Att 235

Entry, Programme, Pennant Included in Hop

Baseball Cap – Supplied by club sponsor

In many respects this article is a cautionary tale about travelling. We’d moved south from Hille, back across into Uppland, but to the kind of location you can’t place unless you look it up on the internet when you’ve got home! On the way, on the E4 we passed the gigantic Dragon Gate, a white elephant of a development originally mooted as a Chinese cultural centre and hotel. The money ran out amidst rumours of planning permission not being gained and now is merely a museum and huge restaurant. I wonder if they ask you to make a reservation first?

I’ve looked up Strömsberg on a map, and it really is Continue reading →

The Dilemma

05 Wednesday Jun 2013

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Saturday 1st June 2013 ko 14.00

Division 3 Södra Norrland

HILLE IF 1 (Barku 45)

SÖDERHAMNS FF  0

Att 231

Entry & Programme included in hop (50sek)

Badge 20sek

10 sek is roughly £1

From Storvik it was a 35 minute drive east and slightly north to Gävle, and the suburb of Hille, which again seemed to have an air of the country about the place. The coach party’s punctuality and Thomas’ driving expertise meant that there was time for a talk about the club from both manager and chairman. It proved to be extremely informative, with the club on the cusp of a major decision.

The city of Gävle is the traditional capital of Norrland.  The name derives from the word gavel, meaning river banks in Old Swedish and referring to the Gavleån (Gävle River). The oldest settlement was called Gavle-ägarna, which means “Gavel-owners”. This name was shortened to Gavle, then Gefle, and finally Gävle.

In more recent times the city has become famous for a burning goat! Continue reading →