What do the above things have in common? A lot if you spend a week in the city that calls itself the capital of the United Kingdom. Join us on a journey that takes you from the Thames riverbank, into enemy territory and then back again.
It’s approaching six o’clock in the evening. It’s August 22, 2006 and I’m stressed, really stressed. My 24 square meter student apartment in Flemingsberg looks like a bomb and I have 15 minutes to pack. Now it’s a matter of prioritizing. The thought of cleaning falls away as quickly as it appeared. Out with the suitcase, in with the clothes. Wait, it’s England I’m going to. An umbrella will compensate for the warmer clothes that I most certainly forgot to pack. A few minutes after my schedule, I’m standing outside the door. A few minutes later, I get off the commuter train in Älvsjö. In the parking lot, father and son Bylund are leaning against a car, reading Sportbladet. After the obligatory ironic greetings, I get in the car. I take a breather, the journey towards my second Mecca has begun and the stress is starting to subside.
After dumping my bag at a hotel on the outskirts of Nyköping, Bylund (Kenneth), son Bylund (Nick) and the hotel manager (the bookworm) go to the more central parts of the city. Hammarby will face Helsingborg at Olympia, a match that the green and white supporters Kenneth and Nick for nothing in the world want to miss. I feel suitably interested when the game starts rolling on plasma screens inside the local O’Learys restaurant. I do my best to try to check out some other football match, preferably an English one, on the slightly smaller screens. It doesn’t go any further. Instead, I do like Kenneth and Nick, watching the game from Olympia. The bookworm is more interested in refills in his beer glass and in his bowl of guacamole. After the game I’m happy. Hammarby lost, something my team AIK benefits from.
Two Seinfeld episodes and a couple of hours of sleep later, me, Kenneth and Nick are sitting at Skavsta airport. We drink coffee and try to cheer ourselves up for the less comfortable flight. Plastic seats, flight attendants in ugly outfits and bad landings are cursed. Despite the curses, we know that in a few months’ time we will be sitting at the same airport again. Arlanda and British Airways in all their glory but Skavsta and Ryanair give room for e.g. number of extra pints in England. Flying takes off at the appointed time and soon we enjoy the first of the uncounted number of pints in London.
The address is 57 Fulham High Street. Inside a red wooden door we find London’s, if not the world’s, most wonderful pub. The atmosphere inside Golden Lion is always top notch and as the regulars we have become, we are welcomed by the owner Anne. A guy standing behind the bar is screaming for snus. He became acquainted with the Swedish tobacco product during the football World Cup earlier this year. At that time, I was on the Golden Lion during Sweden’s match against Paraguay. The entire pub supported the Swedish warriors during the match and chants such as We love you Sweden echoed between the walls. That was in June. The same chant could be heard during the August trip, but mostly it was sung about Fulham. They were the ones we went to watch and Golden Lion is the place to be before and after the games.
Sitting in the Golden Lions beer garden on Wednesday afternoon, we met the first Swede of the trip. The truck fitter Mats from Oskarshamn in Småland had, like me, Kenneth and Nick, gone over to see Fulham’s first two home games. Mats would be a recurring feature during our trip. After loading up with pints and singing inside the Golden Lion, it was time to head to Craven Cottage. The large Swedish flag that during that timeThe gene hung inside the Golden Lion was taken down and stretched out over the streets down in SW6. During the walk towards the arena, we heard various happy shouts about phenomena such as Abba and Björn Runström. Many were amazed at what we Swedes were doing down in London’s holiest quarter. It didn’t take long before we got them in rhymes about everything from Runström to Mohamed Al Fayed. The Runström rhyme became something of a favorite among the Swedish lovers we encountered. He looks like a chick but he plays like a brit resounded under the stands of Hammersmith End later in the evening.
Fulham’s home opener against Bolton was not a cheerful affair. The game was far from good and when I summed up the game on the phone I said that there had been two penalties and two goals, period. I don’t remember much more than these two situations from what took place on the lawn. What I remember all the more of is instead the English match hosts and the police. Fulham’s heel is for obvious reasons both small and weak in voice. Me and Nick, supporters of two different Stockholm clubs that we are, decided at halftime to try to get a little better draw at the top under the roof of Hammy End. We pulled ourselves up and did our best to start some chants but it didn’t go very well. Once excepted, our attempts were drowned out by the voices of the little heel. The heel became even smaller in the second half. The top four rows stood up, which is not allowed by the regulations. However, everyone was friends and no one bothered anyone. The match hosts did not take this into account. About twenty orange-clad black men waved for everyone to sit down. Some obeyed the call, some did not. Those who disobeyed were taken by the police and taken away to the chant Go and get as terrorists.
The game ended 1-1 and I was really lackluster. Varnish over the pale effort and that Ian Pearce was on the pitch. The news that Chelsea had lost away to Middlesbrough did not make me significantly less polished. Half an hour at Golden Lion and a late night kebab made my mood at bedtime slightly better but happy, I wasn’t.
The next morning, Kenneth was up early. The whiskey-loving pensioner from Vallentuna wanted to be cultural and visit museums. After a walk across Tower Bridge, we reached The Dungeon. When we discovered that the queue was almost as long as the walk over the bridge, we decided to find a pub where we could make new plans over a pint. The plan was the Museum of London. A nice museum but unfortunately there was no space about the Second World War. After the museum visit, we enjoyed a steak at a restaurant in Soho, a restaurant that funnily enough changed the prices after our order. After the roast, the biggest dilemma of the trip arose – a pub quiz on the Golden Lion or a League Cup match between Leyton Orient and West Bromwich Albion. A 50-pence coin had to make the decision. The lion pub quiz and the queen football match. It was football. Something we didn’t regret afterwards.
A long subway ride later, we got off at Leyton station. After just over ten minutes we found the area’s first pub. The place looked like a small amusement park. Flashing lights, funny flags and horrible music are my memories from there. A short trip from the amusement park we found Leyton’s arena Brisbane Road, or Matchroom Stadium as it is actually called. After stepping in there just after six we almost immediately found the grandstand section’s own pub. On a flickering 20-inch in one corner, the club’s own TV broadcasts were rolling. The seats consisted of spontaneously displayed chairs and the beer was served in unstable place glasses. When the clock approached 19.00, Nick and I rushed towards the stands. Kenneth was going to be on standby and chose to meet us in the stands. When Kenneth arrived, Nick and I were on our way into the match pub again. We thought the game started at 19.00 but when the game was televised, the game time was 19.45. When it dawned on us, we also understood why our Swedish friend Mats had been amazed at why we were in such a hurry from the fair.
The O’s offered good football entertainment against The Baggies. The guests won 3-0 and the second goal of the game may be the best I’ve seen live. Darren Carter swept on a lob cross from the opposite side of the volley and got a perfect hit. The ball completely drilled into the roof of the net and in retrospect I am amazed at how the goal could stand. Jonathan Greening’s 3-0 goal is also worth a mention. Another impression from Brisbane Road was the apartment buildings they chose to place in the corners of each stand. Two of the houses were finished and two under construction together with a short-sided grandstand. The residents of the houses could enjoy the matches from their own balcony. Something the apartment owners also did. Nice to be able to live in the arena in practice.
In the pub on Brisbane Road we met a Swedish guy, the man from Föreningssparbanken. Since I unfortunately forgot his name, he has to go by that name. He wore a cap from the above-mentioned company. The man had spent three weeks in England and watched thirteen matches. He spoke enthusiastically about Accrington Stanley, who during his visit to the Crown Ground knocked out Nottingham Forest in the first round of the League Cup. He did not have a planned route, but the trips were directed towards the most interesting matches for him. The man from Föreningssparbanken lived for football to the fullest.
The journey home after the Orient game was also a memory in itself. Someone had had the bad habit of throwing themselves in front of the train at the metro station. Instead, I took a bus to Stratford for another train. Stratford will be part of the London Olympics in 2012. When I immortalized a digital monument outside Stratford station, a counter showed that it was 2113 days, 12 hours, 10 minutes and 53 seconds until the Olympic flame would be lit. That was my last memory from that night. The fatigue of the long journey home became palpable when the bed was taken at Swift’s Guest House, it was not a second too late.
Friday and a new game was approaching. Before it took place, the Three Musketeers had time to be cultural again. The British Museum was honored with a visit. World history was well preserved inside the beautiful building, but the rooms were so large and the information so rich that you quickly got tired in your head. Someone said that you needed two days to have time to look at everything in there. I would put my money on three. Culture in all its glory but it was football the trip was meant for. Friday night was therefore spent in a blue container called Loftus Road. The stadium is special, to say the least, both in appearance and because Fulham spent two seasons there. Queens Park Rangers hosted Ipswich Town in a match that, like the night before, offered great entertainment. Among other things, we got to see an old Fulham player in action. Zesh Rehman took his place in QPR’s central defence.
When we left the container later in the evening, we could see that we had seen nine goals in three games – 1-1 between Fulham and Bolton, 0-3 between Leyton and WBA and 1-3 between QPR and Ipswich. The trip from Loftus Road to Golden Lion was short enough for us to get to the pub before closing. When we stepped into there, there were no more than twenty guests left. Among them we found a bunch of singing Irish people. For the next few hours, Irish folk songs sounded between the walls. The word afterparty took on a whole new meaning for me.
The next morning, three worn-out gentlemen woke up in the basement of the Swifts. Irishmen, pints and singing had taken their toll but no more than that after some food and coffee we were on our way again. After father and son Bylund had been looking for a bank branch for an hour without first succeeding, we could finally head for the Golden Lion again. Fulham’s game against Sheffield United was approaching and the first win of the season was in front of their eyes. After the usual recharging we sat at Craven Cottage for the second time in the space of four days. Even though Ian Pearce was once again in the starting eleven, we were positive.
Fulham accounted for a significantly better performance than against Bolton and a certain Bullard dominated down the pitch. His first name is reportedly Jimmy and it was he who saved the Fulham crowd for the second time in the space of a week. Against Bolton, he was the one who scored the penalty in injury time and against Sheffield he screwed in a great free-kick. 1-0 at half-time against Sheffield felt good and Fulham should have scored more goals in the second half, but not. Goal scorer Tomasz Radzinski stayed in front but missed. The Polish-born Canadian’s miss could have resulted in something good anyway, but Bullard’s super strike from the rebound rammed the post. For the second time during the trip, I marvelled at the strength of the goals. That the pole didn’t break is a miracle to me. The most important thing was that Fulham won the game and took the first win of the season. The point was celebrated as it should be inside Golden Lion.
After me, Kenneth and Nick were given some gifts by the pub staff, we left the red wooden door behind us for the last time for this trip. The next day it was time to go home and the expected rock-hard security at the airport we did not notice more than that hand luggage was forbidden. When we landed at Skavsta, Sportradion was priority one. AIK played against Öster at Råsunda and left with a victory, 5-1. A great week finished up in the best way. I want to thank Nick, Kenneth, Mats, Anne, Dan, the bookworm, the man from Föreningssparbanken and everyone else I met during the trip for all the nice things we got to experience. Looking forward to the next trip. Because believe me, it will be brilliant.
HAMPUS PETERSSON
