Iceland – Handball is our national sport

Iceland is by most standards a fairly small country, with a population of around 350.000. It is therefore quite astonishing that no less than 54 teams from 12 different clubs are participating in Partille Cup!

Today, they started arriving at Samskolan in Gothenburg. The first to arrive after 12 hours of travel were teams from the two clubs HK and Selfoss BK.

There to greet them were of course our Partille Cup staff who, with the help from youth players from IK Sävehof, made sure they felt welcome and that everything was prepared for their stay. They also were greeted in Icelandic by Sverrir Reinesson, who has been guiding teams from his home country in Gothenburg for many years.

– I personally think handball is our national sport. I was here at Partille Cup for the first time back in 2004 and have been acting as a guide for 12 or 13 years now, says Sverrir.

He will have a lot of games to see during the week, more than 400 games with Icelandic participation will be played. But on this Sunday Sverrir and the Partille Cup staff will be working until well past midnight to greet all the teams arriving at Samskolan via Oslo, Copenhagen and of course Landvetter airport. The players and staff from Selfoss BK and HK seemed pleased, if a bit weary from the trip, with their home base at Samskolan.

– I think it’s around 200 players arriving later this afternoon and tonight. For me Partille Cup is a perfect way to spend my vacation. Hopefully we get the same wonderful weather that we’ve had here in Gothenburg the past few weeks, says Sverrir.

Partille Cup is very proud and happy to welcome so many Icelanders to the tournament and to Gothenburg!

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