Alfie Whiteman: To survive in Sweden, on and off the field
Alfie Whiteman went into town every day among the southern Swedish forests where his apartment was nestled and enjoyed the chance to branch out and play regular top football during his loan period in Degerfors.
After making his competitive debut for us against Ludogorets in the Europa League last year, our homemade goalkeeper joined the newly promoted Allsvenskan team in August for the second half of the Swedish campaign, and played 13 games in a row as they struggled to avoid an immediate go back to the second level.
That goal was finally achieved on an exciting last day of the season earlier this month when a 1-0 victory over Östersunds, together with a goalless draw for rivals Halmstad against the champions in Malmö, ensured their safety. The remarkable story of the club’s survival in their first top campaign since 1997 was captured by Swedish national TV, with an eight-part documentary to be broadcast during the new year.
Unfortunately, an injury in training the day before the dramatic final meant that Alfie was only fit enough for a place on the bench at Jämtkraft Arena. But after establishing himself as a key member of his club’s squad, the 23-year-old was still able to celebrate a fantastic performance with his teammates on the nine-hour coaching trip back to Degerfors after the match.
“You could feel among the city, the team and everyone involved in the club, how much it meant to them. It’s a small town but everyone there lives only for the football club, so it was a great thing to be a part of,” said Alfie, who has now returned to London and reported back to Hotspur Way. “I was injured in training the day before the Östersund match, we had a long coaching trip and there was hope that I would be in shape for the match so I traveled, but that night and in the next morning it was decided that I was not fit enough to play, but they still needed me to sit on the bench because they had no other goalkeeper. It was a real shame I did not get to play the last match, but we dominated, we missed many chances and our goalkeeper was not so busy in the end.
window.addEventListener('load', _ => { script(document, 'script', 'insta', '//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js'); script(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs', 'https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js'); script(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js');
});