THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED: BK HÄCKEN - HAMMARBY
A different kind of match review but I went to see a top-of-the-league battle and this is what happened
I’ve been feeling very unmoored this week, drifting along without a sense of direction or safety. But to protect my mental health, I stuck with my promise and only peered over the hedge once to check on the boys. They’re okay, no one’s held a salty press conference, gone off injured or had to have more stitches, and Mauricio Pochettino has not been presented for Chelsea yet - although it’s probably just a matter of time, in which I’m going to have a complete meltdown. But that’s for anther day.
On Monday I spent a glorious day in the city doing all my favourite things, starting it off with a coffee in the sun before making my way to the library. Gothenburg is a very walkable city and at this time of year, with the trees bursting and rays of sunshine catching the swells in the river, there is no greater pleasure than strolling the streets of this place. The city library, a huge work of art, filled me up and with a light spring in my step I started heading towards my next destination by way of a second hand shop or two, always on the hunt for a blazer. I was going across the water to Bravida Arena, my first time at the stadium, to see BK Häcken against Hammarby, a Gothenburg-Stockholm derby and an early top-of-the-league battle. The blazer hunt was unsuccessful and every person I met seemed to wear one, as if to taunt me. Blazer-less, but still in good spirits, I jumped off the tram early, to be able to walk in the evening sun and see a bit of the surroundings. I love the walk up to a football stadium when it’s, at least in part, located in a neighbourhood. I’m always on the look out for visual clues, attempting to catch out; who’s also going to the game? Who’s a mere passerby? Which neighbours want to show their support openly?
Häcken have come off strong after losing their first game of the season 0-1 to Djurgården, and have since not conceded a single goal, with Jennifer Falk (one of Peter Gerhardsson’s choices of starting goalkeeper for Sweden in Australia and New Zeeland this summer) a big presence in goal. The team used to be Kopparbergs/Göteborg, a team not affiliated with any men’s club, until December 2020 when they won their first league title and two weeks later saw the board announce that the team was folding, citing how “unsustainable” it was to run an elite women’s football club. I’ll spare you the details (the fucked up organising of Swedish women’s football deserves its own newsletter really) but after a lot of twist and turns the team was acquired by BK Häcken, who had a men’s team in the top flight and a women’s team which played in the second division. Whilst a lot of top players understandably left following the debacle, they managed to retain enough of a squad to keep building on and convince new players to join, one of the being Rosa Kafaji. Only 18 years old, she was the most expensive domestic transfer in Sweden when she left AIK for Häcken in 2021, but broke her leg six minutes into her debut match. The injury sidelined her for 9 months before she could return to the pitch and attempt to establish herself, which she’s since done with panache, and Goal has deemed her one of the NXGN 20 best wonderkids in women’s football. Striker Clarissa Larisey has, like me, made the move from Glasgow to the west coast of Sweden this year. By many seen as the top player in the Scottish league when she featured for Celtic, the Canadian managed 12 goals in 12 games and was the leading goalscorer in the current SWPL season when she made her move in January.
On the tram I ran into this young woman. We were both heading for the double seats facing each other, and an awkward but very momentary stand-off ensued. I chuckled apologetically but she just let out a tsk and a sigh before sitting down by the window.
Oh, okay. Someone’s in a mood.
Observing the antagonist, my scorned self noticed that her look was one of consistency, monotonous if you will. She was dressed in all black, the clothes were of similar textures, with a bulgy backpack from a sports brand in her lap that in my opinion did not sync with the rest of her look. Her face was bare, carrying a very serious expression, and as the tram went over the bridge in the evening sun, she closed her light blue eyes and leaned back. ‘So dull’ my brain made a mental note. I wrote her off, and kept an eye out for my stop.
Hammarby have been steaming on at the start of this season, with six wins in the six first games. Although an historic club in Sweden’s women’s football, the last few years they’ve been swinging between Damallsvenskan and Elitettan (the equivalent of the Championship), and they only moved back up to the top-flight in 2021. They finished 5th last season, and goalkeeper Anna Tamminen kept 12 clean sheets, which was the most in the league. So far this season, she had only conceded two goals in six games, but when I saw her, that was not the only thing I was thinking about. She was recently in the headlines for different reasons, as a photo of her and her girlfriend Rosa Herreros, who plays for Växjö, were caught kissing in a beautiful photo by football magazine Football Is Everywhere, after the two teams had played each other (a game that Hammarby won 6-1).
As I got close to the stadium, hoards of people were flooding to the game: many young girls, parent-child pairings and friend groups. Me? I love going to football games alone. There is just something that happens when I take myself to a game that doesn’t get replicated in other people’s company. I love the feeling of melting into a crowd, focusing on the game and observing what is unfolding around, that doesn’t have to be negotiated with anyone else. It’s a tending-to of the relationship with myself. That being said, I cherish the times I get to go with my friends as well, whether we’re gunning it down last-minute to Sheffield to see England - Sweden at the Euros or going in bigger groups with friends from Glasgow’s different grassroots teams. Assembling like superheroes, the strengths of these groups are community and acceptance. Getting to share the inherent queerness of women’s football with other queer folk is really important for me, whether it’s on the pitch or in the stands, and that connection is a tending to in its own right. It’s a connection to my own sexuality but more importantly to the community that we are, one which is constantly scrutinised, vilified, criminalised in some places. Even when it happens in a country like Sweden, supposedly more progressive than most places, there will be comments warranting someone having to write a column being like ‘why is this a big deal?’
In general, what also happens when you attend a game in a group is that the energy gets louder, it grows, and bounces around, and the players need to feel this love too. Hammarby’s traveling supporters were unwavering during the game, and it reminds me of a sentiment that we got to observe during the lockdown part of the pandemic. When men’s football was brought back in from of empty stands, people finally started to realise that one of the reasons that women’s football is perceived as slow and uneventful is due to the lack of atmosphere created by song, music and general noise from the usually packed stands. Between Häcken and Hammarby, the two teams had scored 35 goals and only conceded three before this game, so it was hard to know what to expect in terms of goal outcome. For 90 minutes, the Hammarby supporters did their bit to make sure their team knew they were cheering them on, as they never stopped singing, which added to the feisty feeling of a top-of-the-league battle.
As soon as I got inside the stadium grounds I headed for the bar, which was set up just under the stands. Light beers are still allowed at football games in Sweden, but I only had my eyes on a vegan match-day hot dog that I’d been craving all day, and it was then that I saw her. Standing at a small table just by the bar was the annoyed woman from the tram, her expression completely transformed. A black and yellow scarf nonchalantly thrown over her relaxed shoulders, she was laughing with her friends and drinking a beer in the sun. I stopped for a second, just mesmerised by the shift. Then I got self-conscious, thinking that she might recognise me from our brief encounter on the tram and I scurried along, catching myself out being embarrassed. Embarrassed that I’d so freely judged this person in my head, based on something so trivial as a momentary encounter as we were going about our days. Thinking that, just because this person presented as very different from myself, we could not have anything in common and we would not get along when in fact, we shared a huge interest and would probably be able to hold a conversation. In fact, I was intrigued and wanted to talk to her, ask her about her fandom but again, my self-consciousness quickly swerved me away from that.
I got my hot dog and went to my seat, the thought of this surprising football fan still on my mind, even though I should know that there’s no such thing because what does a football fan look like, really? The game was very exciting, both teams applied a high press, and were moving the ball around from the back a lot. They were very skilled on the ball, but sometimes the passes were not as sharp as they could’ve been, and there was probably a finish or two in there that should’ve been cleaner. That’s probably down to the enormity of the game, however. Häcken won 1-0 with a first-half goal from Kafaji, and this result sees the two teams share top spot, with Hammarby coming out in front on goal difference.