IFK Karlshamn

Ground: Vägga Idrottsplats

Visits: 1

Date: 27th May 2017

Match: IFK Karlshamn - Växjö United 2-0 (Division 3 Sydöstra Götaland)

Attendance: 100

In 1962 Högadals IS played Allsvenskan football at Vägga IP in Karlshamn. In recent years the local football clubs have been playing at level 6 (or below) but last year IFK Karlshamn managed, via the play-offs, to win promotion to division 3 though. From where I live it only takes around 45 minutes to drive to Vägga IP and this long weekend at the end of May was a good opportunity to make a visit. The weather in southern Sweden has been glorious the last week and as I headed towards Karlshamn the temperature was once again around 25 °C. Vägga is an area of Karlshamn with plenty of facilities for sports. I have been here several times playing table-tennis and the indoor arena is next to the football ground. The ground has running tracks and stand on two sides. Vägga IP was opened 29 August 1909 and the wooden main stand was built in the 1930s from trees that fell in a storm. For this level the ground is quite nice and well worth a visit.

The visiting club in today´s game were founded in 2011 and were originally called Somaliska UF. Two years ago the club changed its name to Växjö United. In 2014 the club managed to knock Östers IF, the big club in Växjö, out of the Swedish Cup (and for Öster fans this was the ultimate humiliation). Växjö United have started the season well and are only a point away from a promotion play-off spot. Karlshamn are in the bottom of the table and as the game went ahead Växjö United looked clearly the better team and it seemed a matter of time before they would score. No goals in the first half meaning 0-0 at half-time though. In the second half IFK Karlshamn created more and more chances and to me it looked like the players from Växjö ran out of energy. In the 78 minute Växjö were still given a golden chance to take the lead but the penalty kick was one of the worst I have seen and instead IFK Karlshamn manged to score a few minutes later. They then made it 2-0 which was to be the final score. For most of the game I was sitting in the open North Stand and later in the evening I realised the sun had made me look like a tomato. My legs were more red than brown and I clearly should have listened to the woman who repeatedly had told med to use sun cream…..