Life is made up of experiences. Some memorable, some forgettable. Football has given me many enjoyable times.
Supporting and attending my beloved Hammarby, and watching European, national and intra-city away games have all been great fun. Sometimes bitterly disappointing too.
At the end of the 2009 season, Hammarby were relegated from the Swedish Allsvensken. With an already bad budget, we also lost the television money income. Today we remain in the second division, but are currently top and finally look like we’ve worked out our team and finances.
Hammarby is a family, my family. Every family needs a home and their is no finer place than Söderstadion.
One of my friends who I attend matches with, Pontus, is an avid Arsenal fan. He used to be the president of the Swedish Arsenal fans. I remember asking him some years back how the move to the Emirates was. His silence spoke more than words. It was mixture between loss, sadness and passive acceptance, followed by a shake of the head. Highbury is the stuff of legends now.
Hammarby moved from Söderstadion just more than a year ago to the newly opened, ultra modern, mega expensive council owned Tele2 Arena. Last month Tele2 or Nya (new) Söderstadion as we say, won the 2014 venue of the year award. The Stadium business awards are held in London and it beat off the nominations of Allianz Arena, CenturyLink Field, Fischt Olympic Stadium, Goodison Park, Madison Square Garden and Wembley Stadium.
I wish no football fan to ever have to move stadiums. It is like a death in the family. You can build a new stadium, but not the charm. Not the emotional connection. We are building new memories. A new fortress. These things take time.
I feel lucky that in my life I attended Söderstadion. Even luckier that there are many films and photos on social media, match recordings and on YouTube. One can reminisce with it being actual real accounted events. Not just folklore, urban legend.
As I’ve mentioned on this site before, Ante Covic brought me many memories there.
Tele2 is very nice. The toilets don’t smell like piss, the views are amazing and it’s more family friendly. There are a lot less wooden terraces and a lot more comfortable seats. We have managed to keep our standing terrace along the long side instead of behind the goal.
About a month ago they started to rip down Söderstadion. They will build office blocks there. The sale of the land has financed the new stadium, and this is sad.
The saddest thing isn’t that we now have to share our new stadium with our rivals Djurgården, who we despise. It’s that we are a multi-purpose arena. Tele2 even has a retractable roof.
The Rolling Stones played there two weeks ago for example. That means we now play on astro turf. Söderstadion was pretty much awarded the best pitch in Sweden year-in year-out. It’s not just the play that’s different, you also don’t get the smell of the clipped grass.
The grass isn’t always greener, especially when there isn’t any.
Kasey
Guest
I was an adult re-entering RMIT uni during 2002-2005. I remember deciding to go to a Big Blue (before it was even called a BB) at Olympic park because fox weren't telecasting it. I had a great time. Watched Archie Thompson score a cracking dribbling goal right out of his butt in a home team demolition of Sydney. Probably the closest thing to a European game I've ever witnessed on Aussie soil. As an AU fan I love getting across the border for our games with MV, but I hate it that we so often get one of the Docklands games MV have as part of their deal. I guess it's a backhanded compliment to be considered one half of a marquee match up( the others being the BB, the Derby and any finals) but our greatest moment in Victorian territory was the unexpected thrashing of the home side 4-1 at AAMI Pk. Besides being a bad place to observe a game when in Oval mode, our record at Docklands is shocking to say the least(cough 6-0:( cough) and I look forward to the day that venue is no longer a part of the A-League Schedules.
nickoldschool
Roar Guru
Dunno about grenoble bakkies. Re bordeaux yes I think they are going to renovate old chaban-delmas and make it UBB's stadium in the next couple of years. They want to bring the capacity from roughly 30k to 20-25. They have a huge following and I hope they can rebuild a great club like the old cabbg of the 90s with moscato, gimbert and simon.
Bakkies
Guest
Desso turf is quality apparently a lot of the big Rugby grounds in Europe have it which is important as the pitch can get soft and dug up due to longer stocks and scrummaging. Stade de France has one of the worst pitches and no under soil heating it really cuts up. With the FFR building a new national stadium for Rugby I say the SdF will keep the same turf.
Bakkies
Guest
Any chance that Grenoble Rugby will move in to the stadium? They play most of their big matches there and Bordeaux Begles are doing that when Chaban Delmas is vacant with GB moving.
Scott
Roar Pro
Maybe, winter 2006 or 7. They scraped that tournament pretty quick. I remember attending a game. It was so windy and the snow was so thick it was melting on your eyes so you couldn't see. Had on all the clothes, actually drank coffee instead of beer. But standing outside for over 105mins .... It must of been about -10. You can't do much about your feet (if u dress "casual") . I have big respect for those Russian guys who stand there shirtless a lot of the time.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
Maybe. I was fairly sure it was Hammarby who I ended up watching play on the box with some Danish mates in Cambodia (David Williams was playing for Brondby at the time if memory serves). The Royal League which was played during the Winter break.
Griffo
Roar Guru
More A-League teams are watering their training fields to increase ball speed and some/most are doing this on game day now so whoever isn't doing this is at a disadvantage. I expect artificial turf to be slightly quicker in general and more so with the extra water without the maintenance overheads with natural turf...reminds me of those who use to play field hockey on bumpy turf here before astroturf fields were built, and how much they remarked the base skill level rose in the years that followed. Better surface is conducive to better passing and encouraging playing on the deck.
Scott
Roar Pro
Not in Sweden. The ground freezes, there's snow and minimum daylight. Pitch warmers mean you can play all year. Most clubs train at indoors over the winter and go overseas in the pre season.
RBBAnonymous
Guest
You can always look at hybrids of turf which I believe AAMI Stadium in Melbourne is currently. It gets heavy use all year round with Rugby, NRL, concerts, football and for the most part seems to be fairly resilient.
Scott
Roar Pro
I'm not sure there Ben. We've won the league once in over 100 years. We are like most a sports club. So we are represented in Bandy, handball, speedway, athletics amongst many others. As you wrote, Malmö , they lost to Forest in European Cup (CL) final. IFK Göteborg (Gothenberg) , won the UEFA Cup twice in the 80's, first time under Svennis.
Scott
Roar Pro
Artificial turf is an advantage to have IMO. You can control the conditions (mins you water the pitch). You can train at your stadium all year round. It facilitates quick passing play along the floor. Elfsborg in Borås (close to Gothenberg) , were one of the teams to first get it. They had some mega run like 25 games undefeated at home. Other clubs aren't used to the quickness.
Scott
Roar Pro
Survived yes. Though we needed this for growth. Better facilities for families. Before it was mainly men. Now the market is shifting. To more women and children too. This forces certain elements to behave themselves more.
Scott
Roar Pro
I try to watch the a-league most weekends. Depending on the games it's in about 9-10am Saturday mornings. Covic still plays the same from what I see. Still does dodgy punches sometimes, when you think he should take the ball. Still injures his own defenders sometimes when he runs through them. :)
Scott
Roar Pro
Astroturf is all over the country. As long as it meets UEFA standards.
HardcorePrawn
Roar Guru
It does serve to remind me that it's been a while since I've written anything for the Roar too!
nickoldschool
Roar Guru
Hahaha Great pick up, had completely forgotten about that! See you next year for an update on the situation then! :)
HardcorePrawn
Roar Guru
Hello Nick, Funnily enough, we had a similar discussion just under a year ago, when I wrote about the similar situation affecting Coventry City: http://www.theroar.com.au/2013/08/07/coventry-citys-warning-to-the-epl/ It seems that the issue of clubs over-stretching themselves by building huge stadiums is here to stay!
nickoldschool
Roar Guru
Hi hardcore, as usual great story. I particularly agree with your point " The construction of the stadium played a major part in bankrupting the town’s football club". Have seen that happening a lot in recent years, smallish clubs investing in a big stadium, getting relegated then bankrupt. Happened to Le Mans, Valenciennes and Grenoble in recent years. We started calling that "new stadium malediction/ curse". Nice article scott. Ps: we could do with a few more gorgeous, educated Scandinavian girls in sydney so feel free to send a few our way! Much appreciated!
Midfielder
Guest
FFA want a new club in south or south western Sydney ... Cronulla or Campbelltown have been mentioned as they broader the gong.. the Liverpool is Football first daylight second .. Blacktown is the other area wanting a stadium ... The 11 & 12 expansion teams will need to be selected very carefully ... however with council and state government funding I would not rule Liverpool out ... question is it two far from the Gong .. IMO needs to be a new team...
Matty C
Guest
http://m.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/south-west/liverpool-council-prepares-to-hit-nrl-aleague-and-state-government-on-stadium-lobby-trail/story-fngr8hxh-1227009786241?nk=6401bf97df0494d33edf560161bf8020 Its states he wants to target nrl and a league but i know for a fact that he wants wanderers as the number 1 tenant.