Jocky Bjorklund: Sweden’s Glory, Glory Days

By the magic of telephony, I chatted with Joachim ‘Jocky’ Björklund, my erstwhile fellow media pundit and now Hammarby assistant manager. His son Kalle plays for him there, just like Jocky once played for his dad at Brann.

We had a simply fantastic conversation, discussing Jocky’s rapid rise to the Sweden first team and beating England at Euro ’92. There’s also in-depth stuff about Sweden’s incredible third-place finish at the 1994 World Cup in the USA and we chat about Henrik Larsson, an Old Firm rival but a friend who was a player with the intelligence to evolve and improve to the peak of his abilities. There was also Tomas Brolin, his nation’s rock star footballer who is actually a truly humble guy.
Jocky says that the best two players he played alongside were Brian Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne when he was at Rangers, and he speaks insightfully and movingly when he describes Gazza’s troubles.

Utterly brilliant, sparkling stuff.

Graham.

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