Week 8: A Question of (Swedish) Sport

Hallå allesammans! With barely a fortnight or so before I jet off to Uppsala, we turn to that most frustrating yet exhilarating of activities, sport. The question that some of you may be asking, and the one that first popped into my head when I considered Swedish sport, was this: what are the most popular sports?
Well, bizarrely, the top five sports are football, golf, gymnastics and athletics: not exactly what I was expecting, especially as none of those are winter sports. Still, ice hockey usually hauls in the crowds, and other sports are still very popular, such as skiing and swimming, but it’s interesting to see that other sports not generally thought of as being very Swedish are the most popular. I was particularly surprised by the popularity of golf, especially as I despise golf with a passion: not because I can’t play it, but because I believe that trying to whack a ball out of a sand bunker is not the best use of one’s time and resources. If you enjoy clobbering a ball with a piece of wood, why on earth don’t you take up either hockey or cricket? At least in those sports you’re not compelled to wear silly jackets – mind you, golf does give you the excuse to drive around like a loon in those little buggy things. But I digress.
Football, as most of you know, is one of my many passions, and the Swedes are also rather keen. Sweden’s footballing heyday was during the early 1990’s, where they hosted the 1992 European Championships and reached the Semi-Finals – beating England on the way, damn them – and then finished third in the 1994 World Cup, losing to the eventual winners Brazil in the semi-finals. However, they then failed to qualify for both Euro ’96 and France ’98 and were awful in Euro 2000. Since then, Sweden have ranged from good to average: qualifying for every tournament, but usually going out in the first knockout round, with their elimination in the group stages by Russia at Euro 2008 the one exception. They’re currently 30th according to FIFA rankings, which is a bit poor when you consider that England are 9th, Scotland are 17th and the US are 21st. But then, that may just be FIFA rankings being complete rubbish: England 9th in the World and better than Holland, Portugal and Croatia? Who are they kidding?
Still, despite the national team suffering from being a bit mediocre, many Swedes participate in football, and the chances of me not being able to find footballing facilities in Uppsala are pretty slim, even if the local football team is even worse than Forest Green Rovers. In order to go and watch a proper football game, my best bet is probably in nearby Stockholm, where there are three teams in the top flight: AIK, Hammarby and Djurgården. The rivalries are fierce, so I probably won’t go to a derby game, and if all else fails, there’s always watching a game at the pub.
It’s also worth noting that there are a couple of Swedes currently plying their trade, or who have plied their trade, in English football: Henrik Larsson played briefly for Manchester United, Freddy Ljungberg is familiar to both Arsenal and West Ham United fans, whilst Olof Mellberg has just left Aston Villa after seven years. Possibly the most famous/notorious Swede with regards to football in England is Sven-Goran Eriksson, former manager of England and Manchester City. Believe it or not, he’s now the manager of Mexico!
One of the main problems with regards to sport may be the fact that a sport that is widely accessible in Britain, such as cricket or rugby, may not be as accessible in Sweden. Another is the climate: the Swedish weather is so harsh, that the football season ends in November, and doesn’t start again until March, so if I do take up a sport for five months, it will probably need to be either an indoors sport or a winter sport. I’m thinking table tennis or snooker myself!
Still, despite the limitations on football, Sweden still has a lot to offer the sports nut, from the interestingly-named bandy, a cross between ice-hockey and football, to orienteering, which is basically cross-country running with checkpoints: I may well try my hand at the latter, having done a few orienteering courses in England. But, as the sands of time shift in the hourglass of destiny, and England’s inability to beat Sweden at football since 1968 continues, I see we’ve run out of time. Tune in next week for another enthralling instalment of…
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sweden (But Were Afraid to Ask)
Chris Stanley