Since the days of the ancient Greeks, nations have sent their champions to do battle on the sports field, rather than engage in all out war. So it was that I represented Britain against the forward-thinking, peacemonger nation of Sweden. Unlike ancient Greece, winter in Östergötland is no time or place for naked wrestling. I was, however, the only international competitor in the history of the Stångebro Boxing Day Bandy half time contest.

 

Central Sweden in winter is a cold place. Very cold. Sub zero. Brass monkeys. In normal circumstances Boxing Day is for watching old films, drinking port and taking a brisk but satisfying walk round the park. Not in Sweden. Here, under several layers of thermal underwear and jumpers the family goes to watch the ‘traditional’ game of Bandy. I began to get suspicious as to exactly how traditional this was when all the women in the family decided to jump ship and go shopping in the sales instead. And so, bereft of womenfolk, I found myself standing shivering in the stands, surrounded by burly Swedish men, watching a game called Bandy.

 

To the uninitiated, Bandy could be confused with Ice Hockey. Bandy is not Ice Hockey. Ice Hockey is played indoors in a nice warm covered stadium, with nice warm seats and nice warm drinks and an atmosphere warm enough to sustain human life. Bandy is played outdoors, in the open air, at the coldest possible time of the year, in one of Europe’s coldest countries. The best and most concise description of the game (that I could find, at least) is that Bandy is like Land Hockey played on ice, but not ice hockey.

 

The first five minutes of the game were fun. The rules were explained to me and it all seemed relatively simple to understand: Two teams of eleven wearing skates and helmets hitting a fast moving orange ball around a football pitch sized ice rink trying to score goals with an offside rule, corners and penalties. It was like the bastard son of hockey and football played in a deep freeze.

 

 

I found a stall selling coffee and mulled wine. The idea of either seemed like super-turbo heated Manna from heaven. Pulling my hand out of my pocket and then removing the glove, I tried to make my fingers work to separate a fifty kronor note.

 

“En kaffe och en stor glögg, tack!”.

“That’s thirty-five kronor, please. Would you like milk and sugar in your coffee?”

 

Swedish is an incredibly easy language to communicate in. You just mumble a few badly pronounced, grammatically incorrect phrases and no matter who you are speaking to, young or old, rich or poor, bus driver or street cleaner, the reply is always in fluent, idiomatically correct English.

 

The man placed my steaming drinks on the counter fresh from the hob. He handed me my change, which I quickly pocketed for fear of the metal sticking to my bare skin. By the time my gloves were back on, both drinks were already lukewarm. I necked them quickly in the hope that I may receive some benefit from the caffeine and alcohol.

 

 

Back on the stands the first half was winding up and Stångebro had established a comfortable lead. My girlfriend’s cousin, Anders, put his hand on my shoulder and handed me an orange ball. I looked around at the others in our group: Sören, Matteus, Göran, Pipen. From the look in their eyes I knew this was something serious. On the ice, the teams had left the rink (presumably, to somewhere a little warmer) and a lone figure was skating out to the centre circle carrying a traffic cone. I looked at the men again, then down at my orange ball and noted that, written in felt tip, it had the number 76. I looked back at the men, they each had a ball with a different number. It was like being in a cult; all around me, every spectator had their own orange ball and they were beginning to move down the stands to the side of the rink.

 

“You must roll your ball to the centre. The person who gets the closest wins a prize. It’s a Boxing Day Bandy tradition.”

 

Another tradition. The spectators began rolling their balls towards the centre circle. This was my chance to show them, to prove myself as a man. Anders winked and offered patronising encouragement.

 

“Good luck.”

 

Good luck!? What none of these Swedes realised was that they were dealing with a professional. I didn’t need luck. I accept, I’m no athlete, no sporting giant, but I had earned my place in the sporting pantheon. Seventeen years earlier, on my French exchange, I had proved myself as a master of the ball: Aged 13, I had won two live chickens in a village pétanque competition in the Ardèche

 

I stepped up to the side of the rink with all the confidence of the two chicken champion that I am. A rush of regenerating heat flowed through my limbs, thawing the joints and fingertips. I was focussed, in the zone. A deep breath and a bend of the knees and the ball left my hand, perfectly weighted, towards the cone. Now it was in the hands of the Gods… Viking or Greek, whoever would have me.

 

About halfway, I lost sight of my ball, not really able to tell which orange ball was which from the hundreds that were being thrown to the centre. My Tim Henman moment over, I went back and joined my friends on the stand, knowing that the taking part is more important that the winning. All I wanted to do now was to find a way to avoid standing watching another freezing half of Bandy and get into the warmth.

 

A few minutes into the second half there was an announcement on the Tannoy:

 

“Boll nummer sjotio sex vinner! Kom och hämta vinsten. Sjotio sex. Sjotio sex”

 

The group around me began to cheer wildly. I couldn’t quite make out why; events on the rink being less than spectacular. Anders began to pat me on the back. Matteus shook me by the hand and I think I saw tears beginning to form in Göran’s eyes, which in the freezing conditions, could blind a man. Suddenly, Pipen grabbed my shoulders shouting in his high pitched voice.

 

“Seventy Six! Seventy Six!”

 

I was the winner! The two chicken champion was back! I was tempted to pull my shirt off and run to the corner flag had it not been for an overriding sense of modesty……. and the temperature.

 

I was led by a near hyperventilating Anders, to a Portakabin on the other side of the rink. A large man shook me by the hand and handed me a large carrier bag full of goodies. Anders told him that this was my first Boxing Day Bandy and that I had come from England. He said nothing and simply smiled. I could see the resentment in his eyes that an outsider had won the half time competition.

 

The prize was one befitting a true champion - A Stångebro Bandy hat and scarf, a large box of chocolates, some coffee and finally, the silverware: A stainless steel thermos flask - which will be full of boiling hot tea when I return next year to defend my title.