Each city has its ambassadors.
It is people who take the lead, who carry the flag even when the pouring rain moves in, also when others back down or stand by the side of the road and whisper in secret.
Every city has its visionaries, people with dreams as big as continents. People who may not always have the compass completely in harmony but who are passionate about their city, for the people of that city, who cherish the past but who are constantly looking forward, towards new dreams, new plans, new victories.
The last time I met Peter Hunt we sat in one of the lodges at the Sports Park. He pointed to the other side, to the years that tell the number of times IFK Norrköping won SM gold. There was a blank box next to the last year they won; 2015.
“I want to see another year there,” said Peter, “I hope to experience it before I die.”
That was not the case. Today I got the news that Peter Hunt has passed away and I think about everything that has been said and written about him over the years and I think about how all the dark, all the stupid grit, all the petty and all the bullshit is clearing away like smoke and leaving me.
“No one in the whole world can displace the standard-bearer Hunt”
I had the pleasure of living and working in Norrköping for eight years. It took a quarter of an hour for me to understand the importance of IFK Norrköping for the city’s residents. If life could be hard and strenuous, like an old moth-eaten ill-fitting suit for the beloved old working-class city, IFK is and remains the white, beautiful lily in the suit.
IFK is for many people the most worthy, the finest and the proudest thing that the city of Norrköping has. IFK is something to put in the window when you have guests, something that builds a backbone, gives pride and dignity to an entire city.
Hardly anyone loved IFK Norrköping as innocently and loyally as Peter Hunt. Much has been said and written about his leadership style but no one in the whole world can displace the standard bearer Hunt, his importance to the club and thus to the whole city.
“For me he was a winner”
I met Peter several times, both with the microphone on and off. He was always low-key, interested, well-read, curious. I have also been touched by many other things about his person but for me he was a winner, a leader of the old school who maybe sometimes went through walls to achieve what he wanted but who also, and this is important, all the time the club had he loved with his eyes.
He didn’t just burn for IFK. He was the fire IFK.
Great cities give birth to great ambassadors. Slightly smaller cities, such as Norrköping, often find it more difficult to relate to their ambassadors when they get too big. Maybe that was something Peter would have agreed with.
Either way, a city has lost one of its great charmers. A family has lost a close relative and Swedish football has lost a big profile and builder.
If you dare to look with an open heart at the slightly worn and worn costume that is the city of Norrköping, you will discover that the hand that put the lily in the buttonhole belonged to Peter Hunt.
The hand is gone. The flower remains.