On a farm in Lier outside Drammen, Filip Green stands and scouts out over white fields. He waits for them to turn brown so he can turn them green. Inside a greenhouse, he stands among germinating seeds, which will become 70,000 heads of cabbage. Bandybonden lives out the dream, in two arenas. In mud and on ice. The farm Filip works on is one of Norway’s largest vegetable producers. Life there is not calm even though the fields are covered in winter. Because all the snow means other tasks: plowing. This winter, the tractor has been allowed to run. – Does it happen that you are tired when you come to training? – In periods it happens quite often. Even if I don’t come straight from plowing, the circadian rhythm is disrupted at times. You get a little cakey from working several nights in a row. And when it’s milder, there are long days in the fields. – Sometimes I feel in my body that “today I should have been at home and slept”, but I am part of a team and then I just have to try to make the best of it. Thousands of celery root are stored in a cold room for the winter, so that they can be sent out to people out of season as well. Photo: Stian Haraldsen / news On the farm, they grow cauliflower, celeriac, celery root, squash and corn. – The job takes a lot of time, and it is not so easy to say to my plants that “now I have to go to training”. They need the care they should have. Shadow bandy The sun has just set behind one of the hills that frames Drammen. 16 young men enter the ice, which is located right next to Marienlyst Stadium, where the city’s sporting pride, Strømsgodset, will soon open their series. The guys on the ice are making the final touches before Saturday’s National Championship final against Stabæk. A final that even many very sports-interested Norwegians do not even know is being played. Drammen Bandy will play for the King’s Cup for the first time. In the shadow of Norwegian sports. – It’s absolutely raw, and has been a dream since I was little, says Filip. The bandy ball is red/pink and has a diameter of 63 millimeters. The game moves quickly, and Filip Green believes that some TV viewers therefore struggle to keep up. Photo: Stian Haraldsen / news Filmavisen became dizzy As with most other sports, historians argue about where and when the sport was born. Some claim Native Americans played a bandy-like game on frozen waters during the time of Christopher Columbus. Others point to the period when Peter the Great ruled Russia, while Canada is also mentioned. This painting shows ice games, including bandy-like games with sticks, in the Netherlands in the 16th century. Illustration: Pieter Brueghel the Elder It is known that the Netherlands became a skating nation thanks to frozen rivers in the old days, and they also played bandy there. It is perhaps a little more surprising that in England at the end of the 19th century something was played that is very reminiscent of today’s bandy. The Premier League club Nottingham Forest was for a while called Nottingham Forest Football and Bandy Club. The English were early on with bandy. Here, the crown prince couple Will and Kate test themselves on the ice during a visit to Stockholm. Photo: HANNAH MCKAY / Reuters / NTB According to the book “Fantastic Bandy” by Torger Mogan Bjørnstad, Norwegian bandy history formally began in 1903, with the first matches in what was then Kristiania. There were close ties between football and bandy at the start. The boys, because it was men who played, played football in the summer and bandy in the winter. This was also the case in ice hockey, which came later, there were many who combined it with football. And although there were a few arenas, people played bandy matches where there was ice, such as at Bogstadvannet and in Frognerkilen. Things gradually became more orderly around the sport, and the big matches attracted thousands of spectators, including to Bislett Stadium. In 1947, it was many years before news started with TV broadcasts, but Filmavisen ran weekly in Norwegian cinemas. When Mjøndalen beat Frigg in the NM final at Bislett, it was a challenging afternoon for the film team. “It is not possible to make a film report of a bandy match, which even gives an approximate picture of the course of the game, the speed is far too great for that. We therefore have to limit ourselves to showing some phases of the fight, which hopefully experts will enjoy.” But growth stopped, and did not shoot at the same speed as, for example, football and handball. Bandy is also very regional. The last time a team that was not from the Drammen area, Bærum or Oslo won the NM was in 1992. Then Sarpsborg went top, and it is the only time a team outside the bandy triangle has won the King’s Cup. The Olympic dream of the bandy sport Bandy was a trial discipline during the Oslo Olympics in 1952. Sweden, Norway and Finland participated – and finished in that order. Since then, the topic has only been discussed, but the bandy has not reached up and made it through the eye of the needle to the IOC (International Olympic Committee). Civil economist and financial analyst Knut Audun Sørensen went through several points a few years ago that he believes shatters the myths about bandy, in terms of size and distribution, writes the Bandyforbundet. Internationally, in the Winter Olympic context, bandy is number 2 in the number of athletes aged 13 and over, only beaten by ice hockey. In terms of audience in the last two World Cups, bandy is number 2 in tickets sold compared per competition day/discipline to the Winter Olympics in Turin 2010 and Vancouver 2014. Bandy has a long history and strong heritage, which is important in the IOC context. Bandy is a “heritage sport” in several major winter sports countries, and the only national sport that is not on the Olympic programme. In terms of medals, bandy is similar to most Winter Olympic sports, where mainly five nations dominate within each discipline. The Swedish Bandy Federation writes that the bandy meets all IOC requirements, such as having an international federation, both female and male athletes, at least 25 active nations on three continents, active anti-doping work and TV potential. Rocka architect designed the plan When the Drammen enter the ice in the NM final against Stabæk, it will be the first time in the club’s history. Drammen Bandy was founded in 1997, and the cooperative club consists of several old greats from the river town. As elsewhere in Bandy-Norway, the guys are either students or regular workers during the day. The criteria for the country’s best bandy players are completely different from those in football, handball and ice hockey. Coach Mathias Stavis works full-time as an architect, and then he draws up game plans in the evenings. – When did you realize that you could go all the way this season? – After the first meeting with the players in August. I knew the qualities of the players, but I didn’t know the group. I knew little about what they were like as people, and how great the drive was. After that meeting, I understood how big this could be, says the 33-year-old, who took over as coach just over six months ago. Mathias Stavis is new as a coach, and has been successful from the start. He has had rock hair for a long time. Photo: Stian Haraldsen / news They have met Stabæk, who took NM gold last year, twice this season. Drammen won both games 5–0. But finalists are not like other people. Anything can happen. Sweet bandy brother Sweden is the world’s bandy giant. When Norway’s two best football teams met for the cup final at Ullevaal in December, Molde won 1–0 against Bodø/Glimt in front of 19,178 spectators. Around 20,000 people attend the Swedish bandy finals. In 2013, 38,474 watched the final between Hammarby and Sandviken. Half a million watched the match on TV. Hammarby took SM gold in front of almost 40,000 spectators 11 years ago. Photo: Hammarby Tifo – There is a different bandy culture in Sweden, which means that the players and everyone around the team put even more into it. The professionalism is greater, and you work very hard at all levels, says Mathias Stavis, who himself played seven years in Sweden. When Stabæk became Norwegian champions last year, 710 spectators saw the final against Ready. In the quarter- and semi-finals this season, there were an average of 163 spectators at the matches. The framework conditions in Sweden are completely different, and they have, among other things, 20 bandy halls. The players earn money from the sport. And then there are many of them. There are 53,916 bandy players on the other border. Here at home we have 5893. – It would be a huge boost for Norwegian bandy if we had our own hall, but we simply have to do the work ourselves. The quality has to go up. People don’t want to pay an entrance fee to see an untrained, fat 35-year-old play bandy. If you go to see a theater performance, you know that there is an enormous amount of work behind it. It’s the same with bandy too, we have to create that product, says Stavis. Women’s bandy Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB It took a long time before the women were allowed to play for the King’s Cup and the first official championship was in 1984, and then Vålerenga came out on top. The spread at the top has been slightly greater than on the men’s side. Bergen won several titles around the turn of the millennium, and Nordre Sande from Vestfold also has several golds. Until 2004, the championship was organized as rink bandy, which means bandy on an ice hockey rink with six players on each team. Since 2010, the women have played on a large pitch, with nine players on each team. The women’s national championship final will be played in Bærum sports park on Friday evening, between the Oslo club Ready and NTNUI from Trondheim. The first world championship was held in Finland in 2004. The Swedes took gold and Norway finished fourth. The Norwegian women have seven WC medals, with silver in 2022 as their best result. Sweden has won 11 out of 12 World Cups. Gold and farm The coach describes Filip Green as very well trained, and a player who is still a young talent. – He has been incredibly good in the playoffs. He is hardworking and has great technical skills. And he really is a team player. Filip climbs out of the big tractor and looks at the clock. Training is approaching. Fortunately, no snowfall has been reported in the Drammen area before the final. – If you can choose: Professional bandy player in Sweden, or run your own farm? – I would probably have gone to be able to make a living from bandy, because I can get the farm after my career. That’s what my plan was when I was little: Become a professional bandy player, and then buy a farm and live life. Filip Green had not thought they would take such big steps this season. Photo: Stian Haraldsen / news Yes, thank you – both parts, that is. That’s exactly how he wants the weekend to end, when he wants to help top the series champion title from earlier this winter, with a NM gold.
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Bandy farmer – Buskerud
