Club Stories: BK Häcken's route to their first Allsvenskan title
Words Neel Shelat
Welcome to Club Stories, a new series which will, as you might have guessed from the title, focus on the stories of specific clubs around the world.
We will aim to highlight lesser-known clubs from all over the world, taking you through their histories as well as recent highs, successes, failures, trials, tribulations and in certain cases, paths to glory.
Our first feature takes us to Gothenburg, Sweden’s second-largest city in terms of population and the country’s most successful in terms of men’s top-flight league titles.
The three big capital clubs, AIK, Djurgården and Hammarby have won 25 titles between them, three more than the country’s most successful club Malmö, but 10 fewer than Gotherburg’s big three could boast as of 2021.
At the start of 2022, though, Gothenburg football as a collective of the major men’s clubs could be described as at an all-time low.
The most recent major title celebrated in the city had been the 2020 Damallsvenskan, won by Kopparbergs/Göteborg FC, the women’s team which now plays under the name of BK Häcken. Before that, the last Allsvenskan title that came to the city was as far back as 2007, won by IFK Göteborg.
While IFK Göteborg continued to challenge at the top of the table through the early 2010s without tangible success, they have proceeded to drop off to a mid-table status in the last few seasons. Meanwhile, the city’s second-most successful club, Örgryte, was alternating between the second and third divisions, while GAIS also dropped to the Superettan and were relegated to the third division in 2020.
For context of how poor this run had been for the three clubs, before the 2010s, there had only been one decade in the entire history of Swedish football that a top-flight league title had not been won by a Gothenburg-based club.
Things were so bad that heading into the 2020s that Gothenburg’s most successful current club was BK Häcken, courtesy of top half finishes in five of the previous six campaigns.
The reason Häcken’s relative success was a barometer of Gothenburg football’s failure is that they were the outsiders – the fourth club of the city by the admission of their own fans.
This is observable in a number of ways, including the fact that the other three clubs share Gamla Ullevi, which is also the home of the Swedish National Women’s team. Häcken, meanwhile, play north of the Göta älv (river) in the Bravida Arena, on the island of Hisingen.
The capacity of the Bravida Arena is well over 6,000, but Häcken attract just over half of that. In fact, in the last season before the pandemic, Häcken had the lowest average attendance in Allsvenskan at about 3,600, which is close to the number of people going to watch GAIS in the second tier in 2018. This is something that fans of not just Häcken’s major rivals, but of all other Swedish clubs joke about, as they are often ridiculed for having no fans.
In researching Häcken’s story we made a few posts on social media to reach out to Häcken fans and talk about their club, but a few rival fans used this opportunity to get their jokes in. To be fair to them, they were fairly creative about it. As one Malmö supporter put it Häcken were the only team with more players than fans, while another helpful Swedish football fan suggested that we contact the players’ parents to access their club’s entire fanbase.
In all seriousness, though, Häcken’s low number of supporters is understandable given their history. The club was founded in 1940, by which point all of the other three aforementioned Gothenburg clubs already had top-flight titles under their name. Häcken would take over four decades to even reach the top division for the first time and only became Allsvenskan regulars in the 2010s.
In 2012, they came close to a debut title leading the way with three league matches left. However, they slipped up big time with a loss and a draw in the subsequent two games, allowing Elfsborg to win the league. Since then, they have won two Swedish Cups in 2016 and 2019 and finished in the top five of the league on four other occasions, but never managed to come quite so close to the big one again.
Häcken hopes were high going into the 2021 season, as they had finished on the podium in the previous campaign and Andreas Alm was entering his third full season in charge of the club.
What followed was a total disaster, as injuries among other issues disrupted Häcken’s start to the season and left them in a relegation battle. In June, Alm said his goodbyes and was replaced by Per-Mathias Høgmo, whose first priority was to steer the club to safety, which he did with a four-point margin.
Still, the season was a disappointment on the whole as Häcken seemingly lost all the momentum they had been building up over the last few years. Unsurprisingly, therefore, most fans we spoke to said that expectations were quite low for the 2022 season, with the furthest anyone was willing to go was challenging for a top-four spot.
This was the case among experts as well. We spoke to Swedish football journalist Linus Petersson, who said that he expected Häcken to finish in the mid-table spots, as did most of his colleagues.
Everyone was in for a surprise.
Häcken kept pace with the top sides and led the table after 10 rounds of fixtures. Crucially, back-to-back champions Malmö were not doing well and slowly drifting away from the title race, and after Miloš Milojević was sacked in June, it seemed very likely that a new champion would be crowned.
Alongside Häcken, the main title contestants were the three Stockholm clubs – Djurgården, Hammarby and AIK. The gap between these sides remained quite thin for the first 20 rounds of fixtures, but then Hammarby and AIK slowly began to drop off as well, so by the time October came around, it looked like a two-horse race.
Häcken were not the favourites at this stage, not just because of their lack of historical success but also because they had a very tough fixture list at the end of the season. They had two trips to Stockholm scheduled within 10 days in October, and their penultimate match of the season was against local rivals Göteborg.
They ground out a 1-0 win against Djurgården in the first of their back-to-back trips to the capital to open up a three-point lead with seven games left. Crucially, they then went on to win their next few games including away at AIK and at home to defending champions Malmö, both by a one-goal margin. Djurgården dropped points in another match as well, so that set up a potential decider for Häcken in a Gothenburg derby.
Häcken made the short journey to Gamla Ullevi knowing that just a point would do, but of course, they were looking for all three. They were without top-scorer Alexander Jeremejeff for this game, but that did not prove to be a problem at all as they thrashed their rivals 4-0 and recorded the biggest away win of this derby’s recent history to seal the title.
Then, out came the golden helmets – the traditional headgear of the Swedish champions – and for the first time ever, they matched the yellow of Häcken’s kits.
https://twitter.com/bkhackenofcl/status/1586847170707202049
In a broader context, many commented that this fixture was symbolic of the powershift in Gothenburg football.
Häcken came to Gamla Ullevi, beat the biggest team in the city comprehensively and brought the Allsvenskan title to it for the first time in 15 years. They are certainly the most recently successful club in Gothenburg now and could stake a claim to being the biggest as they embark on a European adventure next season.
Indeed, the future looks quite bright for Häcken. While they could potentially lose some of their key players and Head Coach in the winter, that should not bring them down too much. When we spoke to Linus Petersson, he said that he expected them to continue operating at this level for the foreseeable future, citing their stable financial situation and structured club operations and strong academy as the main reasons for that.
One of the most crucial things in his opinion is the Gothia Cup, the world’s second-largest youth football tournament held every year in Gothenburg and organised by Häcken.
Not only is the Gothia Cup a major source of revenue for the club, it is also a great place for them to scout young talents. Some of the former participants in this tournament include Alan Shearer, Andrea Pirlo, Xabi Alonso, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Zé Roberto and Ibrahim Sadiq, who joined Häcken in February and played a key role in the title charge by providing seven goal contributions in the last nine games of the season.
The Häcken fans we spoke to were also very positive about their side’s future, suggesting that this could be the start of a golden era for the club and that they now have the chance to establish themselves as one of Sweden’s top sides. An opposition fan jokingly remarked that Häcken supporters suddenly started to appear after they won the title, but in all seriousness, that could actually happen too.
Most fans of the club we spoke to were either generational supporters or people who used to play in their academy, but after their recent success and potential European campaign, a new wave of fans could start supporting the club. For now, though, Häcken fans will bask in the glory of this title success. So finally, here are some words on what it means to them.
We spoke to Thomas, a Häcken fan for over two decades since moving to Hisingen, converted by Kim Källström scoring a first-minute goal in the 2000 Allsvenskan against none other than Göteborg. Here is what he had to say:
“I actually never thought I would live to see it, so it means everything. We’ve been considered a club that is no real contender, but now the other teams look at us and will try to copy our formula. The night when it all was settled and we were declared the winners I was completely drained. Went to bed at 20:00 and slept for 12 hours, like a teenager. The weekend after [at the end of the season] was a different story, [we had a] big party with all the players and all the people I’ve gotten to know through the years. A wonderful day/night/early morning. Many tears of joy and quite a few drinks.”
Thomas and Häcken goalkeeper Peter Abrahamsson with the Lennart Johanssons Pokal, the trophy awarded to the Swedish champions. (Image credits: Thomas Nilsson)
We also spoke to Robin Carlander, who played in the club’s academy back in the 1980s and was a ball boy for some of the senior team’s games at the time. Alongside his father, he watched both legs of the promotion play-off against Norrköping in 1982 which culminated in Häcken’s first-ever promotion to the Swedish top flight. So, the title win was extra special for him.
“To be honest it is difficult to put into words. I have waited for this for more than four decades. I’ve followed the club through thick and thin. Been there for promotions as well as relegations. Attending friendlies in sports fields in tiny Swedish villages to big Europa league games in the Netherlands or Scotland.
“We did it our way. We did it against all odds. When the final whistle fell I was moved to tears, completely ecstatic. Today I can still get goosebumps watching the goals of the 4-0 win against our local rivals. But mostly now I am proud. This season and all the memories will stay with me for the rest of my life.“
Häcken’s title party in Hisingen (Image credits: Thomas Nilsson)
Last but certainly not least, here is Häcken fan Max Barrhäll reflecting on the title and really encapsulating what it’s all about.
“10-15 minutes after the game was over I was just stunned. If you asked me when I was a kid in high school yelling in the stands with 20 other people I would not have believed it… It was one of the greatest moments of my life.
“It's been sometime now and the more time goes by the more I am just happy that we won the league as well. But the demolishment of IFK will stay with me longer I think.
“The first title is something that I am glad I got to share with my daughter. We went to the team celebration together and she looked so happy. Sure she does not understand what happened since she is 15 months old, but it feels nice… I hope she will have fun and grow up to love the team that brought me so much! Joy, friends, memories and so on.
“But to bring it back to how it felt and what it means. I don't really know. As a supporter of the fourth team in a large city, it sure feels nice to prove that even we can do it. It is amazing to see how much the club's fans have grown and so on. But in the end, I am just happy it happened. I was there in 2012 when we were so close, and that set the tone for my relationship with the club and winning. ‘Sure I love Häcken but we can't win.’ It feels so good to be proven wrong.
“For the future, I hope this will be the start of a long history of development for the club, on the pitch and in the stands. So maybe on my deathbed, I can stop hearing people joke about [me being] the one and only Häcken fan.
“But if that is how people want to see my club, let it be that way. I am that fan. And my friends are that fan as well. One thing is certain: 4 goals and a title. It was a good day.”
With thanks to Linus Petersson, Thomas Nilsson, Robin Carlander, Max Barrhäll, Alex Cankulovski, Ante and others for their inputs and insights. Top image courtesy of BK Häcken’s Facebook.
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‘Sterkere Sammen’ translates as ‘stronger together’ - something the last couple of years has taught us all.
Over two decades since their men last reached a major tournament, but with a new generation of talent to rival the very best sides that have come before and the women heading to this summer’s Euros as dark-horses, we thought it was time we went to Norway.
As the world finally opened back up and we stepped off the plane onto Oslo tarmac, we expected this to be an ‘anti-Qatar’ issue, because, led initially by fans of Tromsø IL, Norway was at the vanguard of vocal opposition to FIFA’s decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
However, while there was much to learn about why Norway felt so strongly that the issue of World Cup hosting decisions needed to be discussed, we found this was less to do with opposition to Qatar and more about being a society built on equality, co-operation and togetherness.
We experienced those qualities directly, as people bent over backwards to open doors to Norwegian football heroes past and present, all of whom were generous with both their time and stories.
Egil Olsen and his dogs invited us into his living room, where overlooking the twinkling lights of a winter’s evening in the capital, we gathered around the fire and re-lived his struggles at Wimbledon and glory days with the national side.
As Ullevall geared up to host a World Cup qualifier vs Latvia, John Arne Riise opened up to us about a tough childhood at the hands of bullies and how that helped spur him onto Champions League glory.
We meet Erik Thorsvedt for coffee and a cinnamon bun, while listening to some shocking tales from his time at Tottenham Hotspurs alongside Paul Gascoigne. Later, we visit IL Heming, the club where ‘football’s Greta Thunberg’, Morten Thorsby started his career, before speaking to the Sampdoria midfielder about his work to fight devastating climate change.
Equality and togetherness spread throughout the game and Norway boast a proud history in the Women’s game and ensure that their male and female national sides receive equal pay.
Voted Norway’s greatest ever player, Hege Riise sits with us to talk about winning the World Cup, European Championships and Olympic Gold. We also speak to the first Norwegian to play for FC Barcelona, Caroline Graham Hansen.
Despite only having 30 minutes spare, the President of the Football Association Lise Klaveness sat with us for hours talking about corruption, diplomacy and her dream of making football available to everyone around the world, inspired by her own love of the ball.
Issue 7 also features exclusive interviews with the likes of Jan Åge Fjortoft, Ståle Solbakken, Mohamed Elyounoussi, Mathias Normann, Maren Mjelde and Martin Sjogren, plus the story of the player who stole ‘The Scream’. That’s just for starters.
Our Norway edition will take you from Oslo to Bodø north of the Arctic Circle, taking in Molde, Aalesund and the Lofoten Islands and help you decide where to stay, what to do and where to eat when you inevitably decide to book your own trip.