What a sound thing to do.
There were any amount of examples of Irish and Swedish fans getting on swimmingly before their encounter in Paris on Monday; the communal singing of Abba songs providing the best example.
Before the madness of Monday, there was an encounter between Irish and Swedish fans in Quigley’s Point Bar in Paris and it was only after the encounter that the Irish fans realised that one of the Swedish party happened to have a very high profile indeed.
JOE reader William Keane and his friends arrived in Paris on Sunday and headed to a bar called Quigley’s Point to take in the Northern Ireland v Poland game.
Pic via Facebook/Quigley’s Point
With plenty of Irish fans in attendance, it wasn’t long before a sing-song broke out and when a small group of Swedish fans passed by, some good-natured taunts were chanted in their direction.
We’ll let William take up the story.
“Finding this hilarious, the three Swedish lads decided to join us for a beer. After chatting to them for a bit, I found out that they were three brothers, the Nordströms, who were living around the world but had all come back for the Euros.
“The eldest of them, Joakim, happened to mention that he was a hockey player but at the time nothing more was thought of it. After a couple of more songs and a beer, the bar man in Quigley’s Point informed us that there was a drink for the house paid for by Joakim.
“As you can imagine, this was met with a huge cheer and everyone went over to thank him for his huge generosity. I estimate the round must have cost him around €500, so it was very generous indeed.
“When I asked him why he did it, he just said that we were so welcoming to him and his two brothers and that they had such a good time with us that he wanted to show his appreciation.
“Soon after, they left to another big cheer but not before I swapped Twitter details with him. The following day, I got a notification from Twitter that Joakim Nordström was now following me.
“When I saw he had 12.8k followers on Twitter I thought he must be more than just a hockey player so I did a search for him on Google. Sure enough, he’s not just your average hockey player but a professional NHL player with the Carolina Hurricanes and won the Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks last year!
“No wonder he was able to buy a round for the house.”
Sound man.
Cheers to William Keane for sending this our way. Got a story for JOE? Hit us up on Facebook or Twitter, send it to our WhatsApp number 087-4001102 or mail [email protected].
