ÄLMHULT.
The same second that Häcken decided against Älmhults IF with the final kick of the match, the last greenhouse rays in August ebbed and hid behind the rooftops of the West.
It wasn’t just the dream of winning the biggest trophy ever that was crushed then and there, it was summer that asked to say goodbye.
Everyone was there.
Anyone who comes a little outside the big cities, from villages, communities, parishes, neighborhoods, and places where almost no one goes but where everyone knows who everyone is, knows exactly what “everyone was there” means.
In the Sweden Cup, there is no awful draw for the smaller teams, the sports nightmare draw is always the draw of dreams, so when my father’s union lmhult then(still and forever, it seems), who belongs to Division 3 southeast Götaland, pulled against Allsvenskan league leaders BK Häcken in the second round, decided to go home.
When I got home, I noticed the match had been talked about for weeks.
The entire Swedish league leader is on site in Almkola for a match of real sporting value, that hasn’t happened in… since… yes, in just over 30 years, since 1993 when IFK Göteborg came in with Roger Gustafsson as coach for a Skandia Cup match. at that time.
Blovitt, in red that night, sent a perfectly fine team, Ravelli, Rennes, Blomqvist, Kamark, Nelson played, Stefan Lindqvist scored two goals and Blavett won 6-2, 2,524 people, a new record for the crowd, was there and watched.
It’s almost surreal to think that that match was played in the summer before the summer of WC 94, and I remember exactly how hot it was, where I stood, who I was with, and how the match unfolded (Martin Svensson got Gunnar Larsson Alf over himself before extending his fist to Stefan Rehn). After the final whistle and thanking him for a good game) and above all I remember how saddened I was when the Blåvitt player’s bus rolled up the hill from the sports field, turned right and disappeared for good.
This was it.
Should I forget, against all odds, that evening when Blavett came to visit him, I will at least remember the night Hacken did the same.
fenframate
Älmekulla is like a dance floor, prettier than it has been in a long time and there is something about the old sports grounds and so many people, like the venue itself comes alive and gets a boost of self-esteem for every spectator who flocks through the turnstiles.
Oops, a lot of people, now you have to go and get a little carried away.
There are a few places where late summer evenings can be as heavenly as they are on an old bridge, where the makeshift stands rolled back, the advertising signs that had always crooked suddenly sat a little straight, and the wooden slats in the seats were not nearly as usual as usual, there was Grill haze all over the sports fields causing even the most satiated stomachs to begin to rumble.
Everyone was there.
“Tjabo” Shot It is said that once when he shot a target he smashed the windshield of a bus.
‘Gus’ was there, just like ‘Bosse-Ko’, ‘GG’, ‘Pinnen’ and ‘Jonas Överallt’, after the match I ran into old referee Sture Slätt who had shown me several times.
This was probably the first time I saw him without warning.
There were old teammates, parents of teammates, those who always drive and drive, Ing Marie who was always in the office left her office and she was there, my mom, dad, my sisters and all their kids and my sons. His son-in-law was there, and he’s actually so uninterested in sports that he can’t tell the difference between bandy ball and skateboarding.
Jan Thielen, the father of my best friend and the youth coach who was the first person I lived with, was there.
Few things can set you back 30 years like the football cup match.
The sun cast the last warm rays of the late summer sun on the lawn as you wanted the football field to be.
Old groundskeeper Gunnar Dahl smiled in paradise when he saw his cheery old rug, and perhaps got a little pissed off again when he realized some were going to play football on it.
The Sweden Cup has become more important lately after some really quiet years.
At one end, a televised Cup final is played in a large arena, one team wins, titles are counted and some go out and face Latvian competition in the European Cup, and at the other, small associations hope to write their own. Chapter in the yearbooks, the chores and toil of weeks for the club to gain an important addition to the coffers and to their loyal visitors rewarded with a lifelong memory.
So summer will end
If you want to get a glimpse of what the grassroots movement is and what it means, you should go and watch as a small league prepares for a game against a big football team.
A Sweden Cup second round match for some players on one team can mean a tough away game on Tuesday when there are more important things to think about, while for other teams and players it means that at least once in their away jobs They feel like they are playing a big game.
If you get really deep into the interior of the Sweden Cup, we’ll probably end up with it.
In a kind of gesture.
It often happens when good teams meet slightly worse teams that a good team is very good.
When Älmhult made it 1-0 in the third minute, it wasn’t a ‘fuck now we’re going to take you and turn you upside down’, but it sounded like a humble ‘what a good start the match was’ -joy.
Haken, who was on the bench today, and who even managed to send coach Per-Matthias Hoogmo to Norway for another management, had “some” possession in the first half, it must be admitted, but they got nothing. Holes in 3 Älmhult team.
It took ten minutes into the second half before the Svenskan League leaders scored 1-1 and the score remained and stood and stood a little more until time really ran out.
There, in the end, I counted five players in Älmhult who had cramping.
Exactly at the same time.
When the end was really over, the referee allowed Hahn to take another corner he scored, and after the goal the referee blew up the match immediately after the kick-off.
This was it.
It wasn’t sarcastic, or annoying, or frivolous, or sad—it was probably all at the same time.
This is also how cup night and summer can end, and perhaps this is how summer will end and this kind of cup night, when the changes are still covered by the Bullens, finally the beer tent stands again, the audience record is beaten with fanfare (Over 4000, it still counts)) And those who just lost at random were actually the real winners.
The most important thing of all was… that everyone was there.
