Alstermo IF v IFK Borgholm, Swedish regional division 4

 

Alstermo IF 1-2 IFK Borgholm
Swedish regional division 4, tier 6
Saturday 12 September 2026, 13:00 kick-off
Amokabel Arena, Alstermo
Crowd: 57

Alstermo is a village surrounded by forest with a population of around 850. It was built up around a paper mill and today is the home of Amokabel a company that makes electric cables.  the football club, Alstermo IF, was founded in 1927 and has several sections for football, skiing, orienteering, gymnastics and tennis. They have played a few seasons in division 3 but no major honours to speak of. The village's sporting interest is centred however on their successful handball club, Amo HK, who play in the second highest league in the country and usually fill the hall for home matches (handball is a very popular sport here in Sweden).

I saw Borgholm, from the island of Öland, only a few weeks ago and they looked impressive that day beating Kalmar Södra 5-1, see my report from that match.

Alstermo are currently adrift at the bottom of the league with 12 points from 18 games and need a lot of luck to avoid going down. Borgholm occupy a mid-table position but are only four points away from a play-off place so they still have a lot to play for. Alstermo play in white and red kits whilst Borgholm play in all-blue.

The ground

The Amokabel Arena as it is so grandly named is situated on the edge of the village. You enter on the east side usually by mobile payment or cash (60 SEK for seniors, 70 SEK for adults). On the left is the wooden clubhouse, kiosk and changing rooms and on the right is the main east side of the ground with an open wooden stand where most of the small crowd sat. There's also a two-storey wooden building with a scoreboard. The west side has some benches, the dugouts and electronic scoreboard. There's a white perimeter fence around the pitch but few other facilities.

One nice feature was that the kiosk offered free coffee and biscuits to us all and you could also get hotdogs and soft drinks at a reasonable price. A nice gesture. Last time I was here they had a catering wagon with street food and I was rather hoping to see it again but sadly no. But the half time coffee was fine.

The hotdog grill

The game

This was an enjoyable tight encounter and Borgholm came away with a narrow win and may well have condemned Alstermo to division 5 next year. They are now 7 points adrift with three games to play. The win puts Borgholm into the battle for a play-off place to division 3.

The first 20 minutes were relatively uneventful with the teams sizing each other up but no clearcut chances to note. After 20 minutes Borgholm came close with a nice free kick that went straight into the keeper's arms. But then a minute later the guests had better luck when  Jacob Petersson beat the home keeper to the ball and flicked it over his head into the net. Alstermo went for an equaliser and it came only three minutes later. Kujtim Shkreta passed into the box to an unmarked Isak Bonillo Abrahamsson who shot past the keeper. The visitors then pressed to regain their lead and came close on a number of occasions. Emanuel Thorsen had a shot against the bar and then after 37 minutes he scored what proved to be the winner with a hard shot from outside the box.

After the break Alstermo pressed for a leveler and although they showed great effort and some nice build-up work they couldn't penetrate the solid Borgholm defence. Midfielder Kujtim Shkreta and defender Giga Chkheidze were particularly active with strong runs and good passing but the points eluded the home team today and I suspect that this has been the theme of their season. They deserved a draw here and the disappointment was clear at the end.