Linköping City

Ground: Linköping Arena

Visits: 1

Date: 8th July 2018

Match: Linköping City - Västerås SK 1-0 (Division 1 Norra)

Attendance: 641

On Sunday morning I woke up in Örebro and today I had two destinations. In the evening I would visit Linköping City v Västerås SK in Division 1 Norra and that visit would mean I have, once again, completed the top three divisions in Sweden. My first destination was not football related though. Every summer I visit friends of mine who live outside of Eskilstuna and shortly before 11am I could park my car outside their house. After lunch and a few hours of chatting I set off for Linköping. From where my friends live it takes around 90 minutes to drive to Linköping and at 16.30 (kick-off 18.00) I parked my car outside Linköping Arena. The ground was opened in 2013 and has a capacity of 7 600. Linköping Arena is the home of FC Linköping (playing in women´s Allsvenskan), Linköping City and BK Derby. In 2018 the ground was used for the Women´s European championships. Linköping Arena is situated in the outskirts of Linköping and knowing the old ground, Folkungavallen, was in central Linköping it seems to be a new modern out-of-town ground has replaced a nice centrally located ground. There are four entrances to Linköping Arena but normally only one is open for fans. Since today´s visitors from Västerås have “active supporters” the entrance to the away stand was open as well. For home fans two stands are available but unfortunately the East stand was directly in the sun and very hot. I managed to sneak into the VIP-section and that part of the East Stand was, at least in the first half, in the shadow. In time for the second half I switched to the stand behind the goal!

Västerås SK are joint leaders with Carlstad United and had a decent following in Linköping this evening. Most of them were in home sections but the fans behind the goal made sure there was some kind of atmosphere at this game. This was not to be their evening though. The first half was quite entertaining and at half-time it was 1-0 to Linköping City. The second half was less entertaining but both teams had a few chances to score. When the final whistle was blown it still said 1-0 on the score-board and newly promoted Linköping City are now actually only five points from Västerås SK and the promotion play-off spot. After the game I went back to my friends where I spent a few days before returning home.