Göteborg-Rangers
Well-Known Member
A good Swedish friend sent this to me yesterday, Unfortunately the rest of the article is behind a pay wall, but the best part, concering us, seems to be at the start of the article below. Would love to hear stories from anyone who was there that day!
https://www.offside.org/reportage/han-var-kompis-med-eusebio-och-alex-ferguson/
The year is 1972 and in the western part of Trollhättan, just outside of Gothenburg, it's the summer holidays. Fallens Dagar (a festival in the city), which attracts around 50,000 visitors annually, is in it's third day. The highlight of the festival has been the fallpåsläppet (when they open the lock gates to the canal) since the festival started in 1959. This is the time when the locks are opened and 300 cubic meters of Göta Kanal water per second flows down the Trollhätttan Falls. But the people who didn't visit Trollhättan this July day may have missed something even better on the program this year. Glasgow Rangers, recent Cup Winners Cup champions, are in town to play a match against a "star studded" time of Västgötar (Swedish star players from the west of the country). 1,800 advertisement posters are put up around the small town. The Gulins department store has its windows full of scottish clothes, and in the centre of town, the Thistle Pipe Band plays so loud that the town square comes to a stop.
To the match at Edsborg's IP, where Lars-Gunnar Björklund's of Tipsextra fame has been hired as a speaker. 3,000 spectators see Glasgow Rangers win 5-2 and afterwards many of them continue to the Stadshotellet (City Hotel), where the evening of honor is held, at the 'Scot Ball'. Trollhättan Newspaper is watching the party, where the crowd dance the sounds of the bagpipe music. The herds of people are crowded in the room. The football agent Börje Lantz is there, Trollhättan municipal council as well, and the guests from Glasgow Rangers, according to the newspaper, take the opportunity to let their hair down. Rangers manager Jock Wallace is particularly in the party mood. In the late hours of the party, he goes up to the stage, grabs the microphone and sings "I left my heart in San Francisco".
42 YEARS LATER I'm looking for people who were there on Christmas day. I want to understand why the stars chose Trollhättan, but the first thing that strikes me is how much a city changes in four decades. The city hotel is now called Scandic Swania, Gulins has been purchased by Lindex and everyone knows how Saab is doing. The days of the fall are left, but it was many years ago, such a big team played at Edsborg's IP.
Most people who were in 1972 have died or have no memories left of the days of the fall-soccer. But a journalist at the local newspaper gives me at least the number to Sven-Erik »Stinsen« Andersson, "Trollhättan's living encyclopedia".
"It was Nestor Laurén who fixed everything," says Stinsen. He was a friend of Eusébio and Alex Ferguson.
https://www.offside.org/reportage/han-var-kompis-med-eusebio-och-alex-ferguson/
The year is 1972 and in the western part of Trollhättan, just outside of Gothenburg, it's the summer holidays. Fallens Dagar (a festival in the city), which attracts around 50,000 visitors annually, is in it's third day. The highlight of the festival has been the fallpåsläppet (when they open the lock gates to the canal) since the festival started in 1959. This is the time when the locks are opened and 300 cubic meters of Göta Kanal water per second flows down the Trollhätttan Falls. But the people who didn't visit Trollhättan this July day may have missed something even better on the program this year. Glasgow Rangers, recent Cup Winners Cup champions, are in town to play a match against a "star studded" time of Västgötar (Swedish star players from the west of the country). 1,800 advertisement posters are put up around the small town. The Gulins department store has its windows full of scottish clothes, and in the centre of town, the Thistle Pipe Band plays so loud that the town square comes to a stop.
To the match at Edsborg's IP, where Lars-Gunnar Björklund's of Tipsextra fame has been hired as a speaker. 3,000 spectators see Glasgow Rangers win 5-2 and afterwards many of them continue to the Stadshotellet (City Hotel), where the evening of honor is held, at the 'Scot Ball'. Trollhättan Newspaper is watching the party, where the crowd dance the sounds of the bagpipe music. The herds of people are crowded in the room. The football agent Börje Lantz is there, Trollhättan municipal council as well, and the guests from Glasgow Rangers, according to the newspaper, take the opportunity to let their hair down. Rangers manager Jock Wallace is particularly in the party mood. In the late hours of the party, he goes up to the stage, grabs the microphone and sings "I left my heart in San Francisco".
42 YEARS LATER I'm looking for people who were there on Christmas day. I want to understand why the stars chose Trollhättan, but the first thing that strikes me is how much a city changes in four decades. The city hotel is now called Scandic Swania, Gulins has been purchased by Lindex and everyone knows how Saab is doing. The days of the fall are left, but it was many years ago, such a big team played at Edsborg's IP.
Most people who were in 1972 have died or have no memories left of the days of the fall-soccer. But a journalist at the local newspaper gives me at least the number to Sven-Erik »Stinsen« Andersson, "Trollhättan's living encyclopedia".
"It was Nestor Laurén who fixed everything," says Stinsen. He was a friend of Eusébio and Alex Ferguson.
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