Search: ' Stockholm'

Steve Menary on how the Great Britain team will have a past triumph to live up to when they take part in the Olympics this summer

A century is a long time for any side to wait to reclaim a trophy that once seemed their own. But should Great Britain’s controversial Olympic team win gold in London this summer, that will be the gap between their titles. Great Britain won the first proper Olympic football event – and the first proper international tournament – in 1908. They had home advantage and faced mostly weak opposition in the six-team tournament. Holding on to the title four years later was surely the GB side’s finest achievement.

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Dear WSC
Although I thoroughly enjoyed the article on footballing statues (Striking a pose, WSC 294) it did miss out one rather infamous example – the Ted Bates horror show of a few years back. This short-lived “tribute” to the former Saints player, manager, director and president was astonishingly inept, with legs roughly half the length they should have been. To add to the indignity, more than once a resemblance to dignity-phobic Portsmouth owner/asset-stripper Milan Mandaric was pointed out. The overall effect was of a top-heavy, inebriated and besuited dwarf waving at passers-by. Not really the ideal summing up a lifetime’s service to a club.
Keith Wright, Cheltenham

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Henrik Manninen says goodbye to an old favourite and explains a possible embarrassment of riches in Stockholm stadiums

“Sweden’s Rasunda Stadium is one of just two venues in the world – California’s Rose Bowl being the other – that has hosted the final of both the FIFA World Cup and the FIFA Women’s World Cup. This football-specific stadium, located in the district of Solna some four miles north-west of Stockholm city centre, is famed for putting spectators right on top of the action, and it still generates a fantastic atmosphere for the ever-competitive Sweden national team.”

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Three years ago, Jens Heilmann began a project to photograph the footballs used in every World Cup final. From the introduction to a new book, The World Cup Balls, Norbert Thomma describes how they were painstakingly tracked down

Internet searches on World Cup footballs showed only that they had been badly photographed. There was scant information about the originals. Apparently the world was only interested in goals and artistic overhead kicks, in saved penalties and vicious fouls, in posing winners and fallen idols. But the single item they all fight over was often ignored.

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A club from western Stockholm, known for their commitment to youth football more than the quality of the first team, are making an impact in their debut season in the top flight. Marcus Christenson reports

It was never supposed to happen. Most Swedes have always been convinced that the team called Brommapojkarna – the boys from Bromma – would never take part in a top-flight game. After all, they had played football since 1942 and the team known as BP had never managed to take the step up to the Allsvenskan. Continually producing top players such as the former Arsenal and Sweden midfielder Anders Limpar? Yes, definitely. Getting promoted and defeating the 2005 champions, Djurgården, in their first game? No, not really.

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