Swedish Parker!

SM Guld!

The Mighty Solna Axemen - Swedish National Champions (SM-Guld) after winning the VB Cup in Karlstad!

Got up at 5am for the three hour drive to Karlstad.

Had been looking forward to this one for months.

Teams from across the country were converging in the middle of the country for AFL Sweden’s most prestigious prize - the VB Cup.

The Berserkers made the trek from Göteborg, the Maulers hiked up from Malmö, the Diggers came down from Falun and a few booze-happy students staggered across to make up the Uppsala Cardinals. They joined the big-bodied Helsingborg West Raptors, the ever-willing-to-argue-with-the-umpire Bromma Vikings, hosts the Karlstad Dragons, and of course the MIGHTY Solna Axemen.

Overnight rain had made conditions in the early matches difficult, but the sun soon came out and by early afternoon I was reaching for the sun-screen. Being reigning premiers, the Axemen had high hopes for the Cup, but last week’s loss to the Vikings, as well as the practice match debacle against the Dragons had made us realise just how tough the competition would be.

Group Matches:

Game 1: Solna Axemen def. Port Malmö Maulers

The Maulers struggled to make up the numbers, so with zero players on their interchange we were able to run them off their feet. But considering their clear disadvantage (we had six on the bench and were continually rotating fresh legs), the boys from Port Malmö put up a good fight.

Game 2: Solna Axemen def. Karlstad Dragons

The rematch. We were told to forget about our dismal performance against the Dragons last month and start fresh for this game. But I couldn’t get the memories of Vulcan’s boot smashing into my stomach out of my head. Karlstad were the hosts and had a big home crowd (AT LEAST forty people by this stage of the day) on their side. They were keen to keep the Cup in town and came out hard.

The Axemen, however, weren’t going to suffer a second humiliation and quickly got the jump, heading into the break a few goals up. It was a tight second half, but in the end the Axemen had the superior skills and showed the other teams we were a genuine contender to be drinking out of the Cup come day’s end.

Game 3: Solna Axemen def. Uppsala Cardinals

The students from Uppsala (the University/party town an hour North of Stockholm) were already out of contention by this stage of the day, but we needed a win to take top spot in our group and the luxury of a slightly more comfortable route to the Final.

In the end the Cardinals had one eye on the beer fridge as the Axemen ran all over them. A solid win ahead of the semis.

Semi Final:

While the Vikings were cruising to the final against the Dragons on the other field, the Axemen were locked in an epic with Helsingborg. In a scary flashback to the aforementioned practice match against Karlstad (where I duelled Vulcan from Gladiators), the Raptors fielded more than a couple of guys that clearly spend waaaay more time in the gym than on the field.

I was goal-umpiring earlier in the day when Helsingborg almost got over the top of the highly-fancied Vikings, so it was obviously going to be a tough path to the Grand Final.

But the boys from Solna once again flew out of the gates and within no time were four goals up.

Eventually our opponents began stamping their physical presence on the game and by half-time it was virtually dead even.

A rousing half-time speech couldn’t prevent us from conceding the opening goal early of the second half. Helsingborg were full of voice and it looked like the game might have turned.

However a few heroic runs down the wing and plenty of screaming (more on that later…) of our own and we were back in it.

With a few minutes left on the clock the tension was almost unbearable.

Would the Axemen make it to the final and justify the painfully early Saturday morning drive? Or would the Raptors deliver the knockout punch (literally)?

In the end our full-forward Joel Tjernlund finally found his kicking boots and sealed a memorable passage to the final for the boys from Solna.

We were all bruised and battered, but only had 40 minutes to recover before the final - an all Stockholm affair against arch-rivals the Bromma Vikings.

Grand Final:

Games against Bromma are always heated. The Axemen cleaned them up in last year’s Stockholm League Grand Final, and last week the Vikings returned the favour in a spiteful Round Two clash.

Our cross-town foes are never short of confidence, and started the game feeling more than a little cocky about their chances.

But not for the first time in the day, our midfielders set a cracking pace early and within minutes we were 18 points clear, causing the Vikings to begin their now-customary ritual of assuming the role of second umpire a little earlier than usual.

However it didn’t take long for their gun full-forward Trevor to get into the game, and by half-time he’d already kicked a bag and sent his side 8 points up.

Some inspirational half-time words from former-male-model turned Coach, Ryan Kingsley, spurned on the boys and we came out guns blazing. In a see-sawing affair we managed to keep our noses in front as the clock ticked down.

The crowd had swelled (at LEAST sixty-seventy people by this stage, many were suggesting it was a ground record…), Bromma’s full-forward had kicked his seventh goal and Coach Kingsley had taken the Mark of the Year (much to the joy of the female fans).

But then emotions boiled over and the two stars were going at it, resulting in a five-minute ban for our fearless Coach.

This injustice only served to motivate the Axemen, and within minutes we had kicked two goals clear thanks to some straight-shooting from Joel T that would make any AFL footballer blush.

As the siren rang we were almost too tired to celebrate.

Five games in eight hours.

But once the Cup was presented and the champagne started flowing, we managed to find our voices again.

Above: Captain Courageous, Patty Hyberg.

Below: Full-forward and match-winner Joel Tjernlund, the always-smiling Coach Kingsley, and our Courageous Captain.

But it wasn’t over yet. We’d booked into a few cabins adjascent to the footy oval so we could spend a night celebrating out on the town (Karlstad literally is a town compared to Stockholm…).

Everyone wanted a piece of the Cup! Champagne, wine, beer - anything remotely alcoholic was being poured in and quickly drained back out.

By midnight the effects of screaming inspirational messages to teammates from the half-back flank were beginning to show.

I started sounding like I’d been on a binge of whiskey and cigarettes for the two weeks straight and by the wee hours of the morning was down to communicating via notes written on my mobile.

As the Schlager bars began to wind down, we took a cab back to the camping ground and passed out in our bunks.

Both shoulders, a few ribs, and 100% of both legs were in absolute pain. It was genuinely the most uncomfortable sleep I’ve ever had. There was only one spot - where I was sort of lying on a weird angle on my stomach - where I could lay down pain-free.

By the morning none of us could walk properly. We staggered over to the breakfast hall, where I proceeded to make a new nickname for myself by eating copious amounts of Kalles Kaviar.

After that it was the incredibly tired drive back to Stockholm - but the pain was unbelievably satisfying, as the Cup was making the trip home with us.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Sweden, AFL in Sweden. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.