16 oktober 2010, Kanalplan, Stockholm
Cold air, but nice and warm when the sun shines
So here it is, the final game of the year, and never have the stakes been so high. Hammarby is sitting in 11th place, below the relegation line, and they need to win today in order to overtake the #10 team Sunnanå. Sunnanå is one of those peculiar clubs that generally performs poorly, but can occasionally pull off big upsets and can never be trusted. They play the #3 team today, Linköping, who for its part has been underperforming here at the end of the season, most notably, losing to Hammarby a few weeks ago, and thereby giving them the hope that they could pull themselves up above The Line. On a personal level, for superstitious reasons, I am especially interested in seeing Hammarby stay in Damallsvenskan.
The teams line up, and Kicki Bengtsson is starting. This is a startling fact if you think back to Hammarby's final home game last year, which was advertised as Bengtsson's last. But the Old Girl heeded the call back to her team a few weeks ago, and has been performing pretty well for them. On the other hand, some good players have broken their contract and are missing today. The team therefore must be feeling some extra amount of turmoil and unease, as are we fans.
All the final games are being played simultaneously, and today the other results matter quite a lot. The announcer lists which games will be which letter on the scoreboard, and everyone carefully notes that the "E" game is the one we want to keep track of. For the rest of the match, every time that the announcer starts a sentence with the words "I dagens andra matcher...", each audience member will simultaneously jerk their head sideways to look at the scoreboard, in order to get a split-second head-start on whatever the announcer is about to say. I at least do this listening rather intently, to try to understand what he is saying, with an unsettling mixture of hope and dread.
Hammarby score early, in the 3rd minute (1-0), and the cheering from the crowd is intense. I am too nervous and hyper to really take good game notes, but I do clearly remember Hammarby's second goal, a simple header from a corner kick delivered by Bengtsson. The score is now 2-0—"the most dangerous score in football" is a thought that I immediately do my best to put right out of my mind. Attendance is less at this game than at others I've seen here, but there are some fans waving flags and wearing green and white gear and now some chanting starts up, with one side doing a call-and-response to the other.Halftime. I am far too nervous to eat anything. However, a souvenir is procured, a coffee mug that celebrates the 40 years of this team's existence, all of which have (so far) been spent playing at the highest level. Normally I would not dare to get such a souvenir before the game was over and the 41st year was secured; however, the cafe closes before the game is over, so I could either get one "too early," or I couldn't get one at all. Can superstition be cured by taking practical action?
The second half starts with my fervent hope that Hammarby can just hold on, just hold on, all they have to do is hold on to this lead. The score of the E-game remains 0-0, and that would be fine— if Sunnanå were to draw against Linköping, the two teams would be tied on points but Hammarby would still almost certainly avoid relegation on the ground of their better goal differential. Soon after half time the dreaded announcement comes— "In today's other match... game E..." the heads of my little hejarklack whip around to the scoreboard —ohshitohshitohshit— time slows down— the old-fashioned flip-style numbers take an agonizingly slow time to turn over —they have these kind of numbers on purpose just to torture us— the left-hand number flickers— I have a moment of panic when I forget who is the home team for that game— the announcer says that Linköping has scored against Sunnanå.
The cheering from the crowd is huge, frankly more than it was for the second goal and maybe for the first as well, and with an added sense of relief. I wish fervently for everything to stay exactly the way it is. "Wouldn't it be better if they scored even more?" one of my hejarklack asks. "No," I answer, "I don't want to be greedy." There is a Swedish word to explain what I am feeling, lagom, which means a satisfaction when things just right— not too much, not too little, but just exactly enough. Wish I had remembered it at the time.
The game goes on, and gets a little chippy some time around the middle of the second half, with players on both teams shoving and holding and looking a little wild-eyed. The crowd is starting to feel more confident, a feeling that increases as the E-game score climbs to 2-0 and then finally 3-0. Bengtsson comes off the field in the 80th minute, to much applause. The game ends, and the team members jump about and cheer, and link hands and run to each side of the field to bow and cheer their fans. The E-game ends. The improbable has become reality: Hammarby will return to Damallsvenskan next year.
But why the superstition, why my extra concern? Well... it turns out that I will also be returning to Damallsvenskan next year, and probably for a few more years yet to come. After two years living here, and of feeling generally somewhat unsettled and like a long-term tourist, I am looking forward to a trying to achieve little normalcy. It won't be easy— both Hammarby and I have our work cut out for us for the next year— but at least we have a chance. So in case anyone out there is reading this, and looking for an excuse to cheer and/or take a dram, join me in a toast to Sweden, and football, and the good things in life. Skål!
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