ABSTRACT
Friday evening. Snow outdoors. I walk to the Baltic Hall [a sports centre in Malmö, Sweden]. My intention is to watch two matches this evening: one with each team out of which I will interview a player. On Saturday morning I will return and interview at least one of them. I have spoken to one of them over the telephone and have had e-mail contact with the other one and told them that I will come and say hello on Friday evening. First I go up to the janitors and ask for a room where I can do the interviews. I get the phone number to the janitor that works on Saturday. A stand in the entrance advertises catheters, there are catheter samples for free and a bowl of toffees. … There are only a few spectators. I sit down behind one of the teams to be able to hear what they are talking about. … At my side three young women take their seats, together with a small girl. I understand that they know a boy in the team.… A few more people drop in on the grandstand, I count up to 26 people altogether. One more girl sits down some seats beyond the others, and occasionally they ask her a question and I understand that they know each other too. I get the same feeling as in previous years when I have attended matches in wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby, sledge hockey or table tennis: everybody knows each other because they are either relatives, functionaries or employed. And, true or not, everybody wonders who I am. As last year, I think to myself that the possibility to block the opposing
team with the wheelchairs really gives the game its character. It also makes the game considerably tougher than basketball. Sometimes the confrontations are forceful and the chairs overturn. But they are always quickly on their wheels again; it very seldom leads to calling off. A couple of times the wheelchairs get stuck together and a functionary has to take off a wheel – but it is quick work. XX is heard during the match. For instance, she calls out which
number she is blocking and warns if someone is coming close to the goal area and needs to be stopped. She is the one who takes the throw-ins. Several times I think that I should only follow her, but my gaze over and over again slips over to the player who has the ball, and that is never XX, except for the throw-ins.
