Botkyrka is a surrounding municipality south of Stockholm. Here, Lake Mälaren’s brilliant water and Hågelbyparken’s bursting forest meet hard concrete foundations and million programs.
In Tornbergsskolan’s gymnasium, the rib chairs extend up along the walls. In the early 80’s, Krister Kalte and a bunch of other teenagers usually go into the hall and play floorball in the evenings. The colorful clubs collide, the young people are tackled and there are no major rules. There are also no guidelines or role models – floorball hardly exists outside the leisure centers in the country.
Just before 1984 becomes 1985, the gang decides to start an association. The boys discuss name proposals and think that Tornet – the name of the leisure center – is a strong proposal. But they have also read JRR Tolkien’s books and stuck to the balrog.
The creature is one of Tolkien’s most terrifying demons and is said to move like black and white shadows. Anyone who has seen the films or read the books about The Lord of the Rings knows that the demon, in a horrible sea of fire, pulls Gandalf underground.
– We thought that balrogen matched us. It was said that it had arms with the snaking ability of snakes and we were trained on a small level. In addition, the Balrogens main weapon is a club, says Krister Kalte.
It was a drunken battle, we barely got people together and almost always went out in the quarterfinals.
The teens also pick up inspiration from American sports and throws an Oilers in the name. The association, which turns black and white after the balrog’s shadow-like pattern, travels around Sweden and plays small tournaments on the weekends. The team is good, always goes to the quarterfinals, but there is a problem: the quarters are usually played early Sunday morning.
– I do not know if it is writable but there were several who came directly from the night out. It was a drunken party, we barely got people together and almost always went out in the quarter finals, says Thony Andersson, today chairman of the club.
They realize that if they want to get somewhere, the partying must end. Balrog becomes more serious, the guys start fixing sponsors, club contracts and the association climbs up in the highest series.
It oozes a mixture of the teenage attitude and suburbanism of the team that makes its first season in the elite series in 1990. Three years later – not even ten years after the evenings in Tornbergsskolan’s gymnasium – they are suddenly Swedish champions.
– We emphasized ourselves and it was probably a bit unusual at that time, so we got a lot of opponents. But we were aware of that. If we stick out the chin far enough, someone will eventually pat it, says Krister Kalte.
One of the big stars in the team is Thomas Brottman.
– I remember that we had “no limits”. It felt like we were lying to ourselves and thinking we were going to be the best. We thought we were the coolest and it was an unlimited time – we got to live out in a way that was damn liberating, says Brottman.
In 1993, they also win the European Cup, which Krister Kalte and the association themselves are involved in arranging. Balrog forms a women’s team, has a maximum of 22 youth teams and wins another Swedish Championship gold on the men’s side in 1996.
In the elite series, the team fights with Stockholm rivals such as Haninge, Järfälla and Fornudden. In addition, the women’s team wins three straight Swedish Championship golds in the early 00s. In parallel with – and thanks to – Balrog’s progress, floorball is also growing in Sweden.
– Say that SVT-sport had ten reports on floorball in one year. At that time, eight were about Balrog. That’s how it felt anyway, and that was because we worked to be seen and heard. We had to reach out, says Thony Andersson.
At home prevails floorball fever. Balrog is the pride of northern Botkyrka and the association is something to unite for and brag about in the municipality. But when the playoffs are common, the home matches are played in other parts of Stockholm. Balrog has to move to Eriksdalshallen as Alby sports hall is too small.
The municipality therefore decides on the construction of a new hall, built according to the needs of floorball. It will be ready in 2006. But then Balrog’s men, after a final thriller against AIK, have already won their latest, and perhaps last, Swedish Championship gold.
When the confetti has settled on the champagne-soaked dressing room floor in Hovet, the beginning of the end begins for the demons from Tornbergsskolan’s gymnasium.
In the same vein as the women’s team is taken over by Djurgården in 2010, the men’s team leaves the elite series and since then Balrog has not been seen in the floorball finery.
– It just died. The development ran away from us and we had no basis to stand on, says Krister Kalte.
The foundation disappeared in time with the association being eroded into youth teams. At the same time as Balrog celebrated the Swedish Championship gold, ran a large youth activity and charmed Botkyrka, there was a shift in the municipality’s population.
During the latter part of the 10s, the municipal board’s Ebba Östlin (S) described the municipality as the most segregated in Sweden and according to Statistics Sweden, the proportion of people with a foreign background, 61 percent, is highest in the country. At the beginning of the 2000s, the proportion was 47 percent.
– There is a different culture and tradition among the inhabitants today than there was in the 90s. When the demographics changed in Norra Botkyrka, floorball was not the natural choice of sport, says Krister Kalte.
Balrog tried, together with the municipality, to arrange activities and floorball schools but it never really bit. Thony Andersson shares Kalte’s picture.
– Floorball is greatest in the more affluent areas. That’s how it is, which is strange considering it’s not an expensive sport. Here, football has taken over, at least for the time being.
The association also had a hard time keeping up with the development of floorball. The sport in which Balrog had been active had now run away.
– The wheel that the club built began to roll too fast simply, says the then star Thomas Brottman.
Brottman left the club 2004, became a very successful coach and is today the national team captain for the Swedish men’s national team. He compares Balrog with Falun, with whom the coach has won Swedish Championship gold.
– It is well known that the conditions of Stockholm floorball are not the best. Misunderstand me right, but there are a little too many teams and it gets too scattered. In Falun, there is only one team that can absorb talent and income, says Brottman.
One can talk about other underlying factors, and it is a sad answer, to say money.
Today, Balrog rests on only one men’s team, which plays in division 1, and one paral team. The youth and women’s activities are gone. When Thony Andersson is asked to list three reasons for Balrog’s case, the answer is simple.
– Money, money… and money. It is clear that one can talk about other underlying factors, and it is a sad answer, to say money. But if we had had a better economy, we would at least have been able to build a squad that would last in the Swedish super league.
It’s not about that the association did not receive money from the municipality, or that the policy made wrong decisions. Quite the opposite – Balrog has always been happy with the municipality’s support. But if you are going to run an elite association where interest is starting to cool down, audience income is low and there are no obvious outside financiers, then hard non-profit work is required. At the same time – just as Brottman mentioned – the associations in Stockholm are fighting against each other for sponsors, partners and players.
– We are not close to teams from smaller municipalities in Sweden. In such clubs, which become the town’s major hub, there is great support from both private and municipal sources. It’s harder to get here in Stockholm. It is a constant work from individuals in associations and sometimes it is so fragile that it depends on a person’s commitment, says Thony Andersson.
Krister Kalte is no longer there in the association. He joins as a speaker sometimes but is instead chairman of the Swedish super league, SSL. Andersson is the only one from the founding who remains and has in recent years acted as chairman. But he has a hard time seeing how Balrog will reach its heyday again.
– I can not even say where Balrog is in five years. The tragedy could be that it indirectly depends on me. It is clear that it would have been fun to revive the association, but I have a hard time seeing it happen without any drastic change.
Resurrection or not – it is impossible to diminish Balrog’s significance for Swedish floorball. Without Balrog’s progress, from the leisure center to the Swedish Championship gold, youth and will, floorball might not have been where it is today.
– No one can take away from us the history and the journey we made. We have been an extremely large part of Swedish floorball, says Andersson.
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