It was time for my monthly trip to Lulea, but as the nights are drawing in and most of the nearby teams are in the lower tiers, the general lack of floodlights at their grounds meant that I had very few games to choose from. Alvsby are in the sixth tier Norrbotten Sodra, but their Alvakra IP sports complex is big enough to have lights and so that’s where I went. Alvsbyn is a small town of around five thousand people, but it is on the east coast train line, so reasonably accessible, even in mid-winter.
I didn’t need the train as I had a car and managed to do the forty-five minute journey in the daylight, accompanied by my workmate Steve. He’s a Wolves fan, so was quite happy to take his mind off their Premier League woes with some Swedish groundhopping. There were roadside signs for moose, but disappointingly we didn’t see any.
What we did see was some snow on the running track at the ground. Steve reckoned that it must have recently fallen, but I like to think that it was the remnants of a forty-foot-high pile, cleared from the pitch back in March.
We got chatting with the lady taking the gate money. When he heard that we’d travelled from Lulea she offered to let us in for free. As she’d only just told us about the role that the club played in the community, particularly for some of the less well-off kids, it didn’t seem right to accept her generous offer though and we handed over the recommended four quid admission fee.
The gate lady also told us about the respective teams. This was the penultimate game of the season for both sides and the final home fixture for Alvsby. They would finish between fourth and sixth in the table depending on the results in those two fixtures, but promotion was out of reach.
Visitors Bergnasets were a development side but apparently would often strengthen their team with first team players. She’d heard that for tonight’s game they would be fielding mostly youngsters, giving her hope that Alvsby might come out on top.
Her hopes materialized with the home side taking the lead in the first minute. Bergnasets equalized, but in an open first half where either side could have scored five, the teams went off at the break with Alvsby two-one up.
I liked the ref. He was willing to overturn a penalty that he had awarded after a chat with the lino and then later on after mistakenly brandishing a red instead of yellow, he acknowledged his error when he saw the colour rather than brazening it out by sticking to his decision.
The temperature off the field dropped quite a bit in the second half and the game could have gone either way. Alvsby finally clinched the points with a third goal in the last minute. There were no moose on the way back either.
Trail of the Lion King 
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