Luleå SKGround: Åkevallen (Hertsö IP) Visits: 1 Date: 8th June 2019 Match: Luleå SK - Storfors 0-3 (Division 3 Norra Norrland) Attendance: 87 When Boden were promoted to Division 1 Norra it meant I had one ground missing in the top three divisions in Sweden. It is 1480 km from where I live to Boden and going through my options I decided to go to the north of Sweden the national day weekend. 6 June is Sweden´s national day and being on a Thursday I was free from work on the Friday as well. My trip started on Friday afternoon when I had a flight from Malmö to Stockholm. On Friday evening I then attended Sweden v Malta at Friends Arena in Solna. At 09.30 on Saturday I was on my second flight of the weekend and shortly before 11am I was at Kallax airport in Luleå. My destination this lovely Saturday afternoon was Åkevallen (Hertsö IP) for the Division 3 Norra Norrland fixture between Luleå SK and Storfors. Before going to the ground I checked-in at my hotel. I also met up with my friends from Gothenburg, Christian and Magnus. They were going to Boden as well on Sunday but today their game was IFK Luleå v Ytterhogdal at Skogsvallen. Hertsön is almost a town of its own but is considered being a part of Luleå. It was only 10 minutes by a local bus to Hertsö centrum and the ground was then around 5 minutes by foot. Hertsö IP is owned by Luleå city council and consists of several artificial pitches. Åkevallen is a grass pitch, next to Hertsö IP, which was built by Luleå SK around 20 years ago. Luleå SK use Hertsö IP early on in the season but as soon as the grass is ready to host football they play at Åkevallen. They use the dressing rooms at Hertsö IP though and I really like a team from these parts of Sweden preferring to play on grass. Before the match I chatted to a local who turned out to be Bengt Augustsson. He is a former Allsvenskan referee and nowadays chairman of Luleå SK and the Norrbotten FA. There are 12 level 5-leagues in Sweden and Division 3 Norra Norrland is the most northern. For geographical reason there are only 10 (instead of 12) teams in Division 3 Norra Norrland and Luleå SK were promoted from Division 4 at the end of last season. As the speaker announced the line-ups he also informed those in attendance there was a special guest at the match. He then mentioned me and my website. A nice surprise for me and it made me wonder how they knew I was at this game. I suspected Leif Pekkari had tipped them off and at half-time this was confirmed by the speaker. The actual match was played during fantastic conditions, 23 degrees and a clear sky. The visitors from Storfors were by far the better team and deservedly won 3-0. A great start to my weekend in Norrbotten and later in the evening I met up with Christian and Magnus for a nice dinner.
Hertsö IP Welcome to Hertsö IP Åkevallen, entrance North Stand North Stand North Stand East End Dug-out West End Players on their way Kick-off View of play North Stand North Stand View of play Pano Pano |