The Watertower

Tags

Football, groundhopping, Husie, Idrottsplats, Kim Hedwall, Sweden, Vellinge, Vellinge IP

Sunday 4th June 2017 ko 15.00

Division 5 Sydvästra Skåne

VELLINGE I.F. 7 (Marius Hansson 22 47 C Wreme 34 60 Kruse 43 Lindell 74 Krönström 90)

HUSIE F.F. 1 (Johannsson 66)

Att 68

Entry 40 sek

We began to make our way back to the Øresund Bridge and our flights from Kastrup airport. The 11th Swedish Hop’s final stop was Vellinge, whose claim to fame seems to be that it was once voted Sweden’s second best place to live, history doesn’t record who won though! The other thing Vellinge is famous for is it’s 40 metres tall, 400 million litre vatterntorn, or water tower. And if you weren’t completely au fait with what a huge concrete funnel is for, the clever Swedes have painted the thing in blue stripes!

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Easter Eggs

Tags

Anderslovs, Football, groundhopping, Kim Hedwall, Klagstorp, Klagstorps IF, Skåne, Sweden, Swedish hop, Trelleborg

Sunday 4th June 2017 ko 12.00

Division 5 Södra Skåne

KLAGSTORPS I.F. 4 (Dakaj 24 50 A Sheshaee 30 Krasniqi 54) Mullatahiri sent off 48 (violent conduct)

ANDERSLÖVS Bo.I.K. 1 (Lindahl 33)

Att 115

Entry & Programme 40 sek

With carry-on baggage so limited on budget airlines these days I’ve long since learned to take and wear old clothes so that they can be dumped leaving space for souvenirs on the journey back. But this time I decided that my “North Face” waterproof jacket was due for retirement, so there it sat in the hotel wardrobe in Trelleborg, destined to stay there if the weather stayed sunny. My alarm went, I peered through the curtains….. typical…rain! The coat was brought into action one last time. 

Canapes

Tags

Arlovs, Football, groundhopping, Skåne, Skegrie, Sweden, Swedish hop, Torbjörn Karlsson

Saturday 3rd June 2017 ko 17.00

Division 5 Sydvästra Skåne

SKEGRIE B.K. 4 (Ljungvist 5 Revesz 38 80 82)

ARLÖVS B.I. 4 (Svensson 11 25 48 Johansson 61)

Att 46

Entry & Programme 40sek

If our previous game at Gylle was sold to the British contingent on the Swedish Hop as a beautiful location, then Snarringe I.P. was at least its equal. The small village near Trelleborg is best known as where some Dolmen, or standing stones were discovered, dating back to Viking times but is now a peaceful idyll in rural southern Sweden. There was one small problem though, actually pronouncing the name “Skegrie!”

The Cunning Linguists

Tags

AIF, Baskemolla, Football, groundhopping, Gylle, Kim Hedwall, Kommun, Skåne, Stadion, Sweden, Trelleborg

Saturday 3rd June ko 14.00

Division 7 Sydöstra Skåne

GYLLE A.I.F. 4 (Mekic 60 79 Sinteus 69 84)

BASKERMÖLLA I.F. 1 (Korac 53)

Entry 30 SEK

Programme FREE

You have to be careful with the language in Skåne, as in southern Sweden the dialect owes much to Danish, even Stockholm resident hop organiser Kim Hedwall discovered understanding the locals’ dialect wasn’t necessarily a given. He speaks standard Swedish, the kind you’d hear on TV, but this isn’t the Swedish you’d necessarily hear down here. On one hand you could see it as like a Londoner having a conversation with a Glaswegian, but there are other differences too. And the name of the 3rd club on this year’s Swedish hop demonstrated the point rather well….

The Idrottsplats

Tags

Football, groundhopping, Idrottsplats, Kavlinge, Kvarnby, Malmo, Skåne, Sweden, Swedish hop

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.

The Bridge

Tags

Bosniska FK Behar, Football, Kim Hedwall, Kommun, Skåne, Sweden, Trelleborg, Trelleborgen, Turkisk Center FF

Friday 2nd June 2017 ko 19.00

Division 7 Sydvästra Skåne

BOSNISKA FK BEHAR 4 (Pajovic 8 27 F Guta 73 76)

TURKISK CENTER FF 1 (Xhemajli 4)

Att 55

Entry FREE

Programme FREE

At one point Joachim “Kim” Hedwall was a fixture on most British-based groundhops, and every time we saw him, we’d ask him when he was going to organise a hop in his country. Eventually he relented, and in 2007 the first Swedish Hop took place based in Nyköping and Stockholm. I was there, and I flew back fully expecting it to have been a one-off event, so catching the plane from Stansted for the 11th Swedish Hop I regard this event as being groundbreaking but also feel fortunate that its still taking place. 

Tastes of Stockholm

Tags

Holidays, Stockholm, Sweden, Tourism, Under the Bridges of Stockholm

Stockholm 1st to 2rd June 2016

This year’s visit was different, for the first time I convinced a significant other to come with me. On one hand it wasn’t too difficult to convince Robyn, all I had to do was show her the photos I took last year but this year we were a little short of time so my task was to condense the best of Sweden’s capital into a little over a 48 hours.

More Of The Good Stuff

Tags

BK, Enköping, Fanna, Kim Hedwall, Råbergsvallen, Rosersberg, Rosersbergs, Sweden, Swedish hop

Sunday 5th June 2016 ko 16.00

Division 5 Södra Uppland

ROSERSBERGS IK 1 (Lyngbrant 34p)

FANNA BK 1 (Abbas 88) Smedlof sent off 68 (2nd booking)

Att 121

We left the countryside and narrow-gauge railway and headed back to the Swedish Hop’s eventual terminus at Arlanda Airport. The planes flying over the top of Råbergsvallen seemed to me a horrible reminder of what was shortly going to finish. My girlfriend Robyn was half-asleep, half gazing in wonder at the scenery so whatever occurred at our final game I knew that at least from her perspective, her first trip to Sweden had been a success. The last sign back to Kårsta disappeared as we reached the E4 motorway and we headed north.

Heart

Tags

FK, GoIF, Kare, Kårevallen, Kårsta, Kim Hedwall, Staffen Hassius, Stockholm, Sweden, Unik

Sunday 6th June 2016 ko 13.00

Division 5 Södra Uppland

GoIF KÅRE 1 (Zachrison 64)

UNIK FK 0 Holm sent off 81 (violent conduct)

Att 126

Sweden’s countryside is so friendly, even the bus shelters talk to you (If you push the button on them)! Following Swedish hop tradition it seemed, we followed the Roslagsbanan narrow gauge railway, but this time to its terminus at Kårsta, although there are plans to reinstate the line right through to the heritage lines further north-east to Rimbo. We were at the furthest outpost of Stockholms Lan (Stockholm County) and our coach bumped down a track at the edge of the village but what we were to find at the end blew us all away.

Odd One Out

Tags

Ian Sirelius, Kim Hedwall, Sirius', Studenternas, Sweden, Swedish hop, Trelleborgs, Uppsala

Saturday 4th June 2016 ko 18.00

Superettan

IK SIRIUS FK 2 (Björkbaum 67 Bergman 78)

TRELLEBORGS FF 1 (Jovanovic 29)

Att 1,170

Entry 140sek (but included in hop price)

Programme 20 sek (but included in hop price)

If the Swedish Hop isn’t about one thing it was this. We’ve put on games at Allsvenskan and Superettan grounds before and the result is always the same. Organiser Kim Hedwall gets the clamour to include them but when we do, we don’t get the extra hoppers that would justify doing it more often. Now whilst Kim and I would love to see more hoppers come to Sweden each year, we are reasonably comfortable with the 20-or-so we get each year.  There was though a couple of compelling reasons to head north to Uppsala.