By Beate Cecilie Stampe Rasmussen
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It was with an atmosphere of an unofficial Nordic Soccer Championship between Denmark and Sweden when the two nations met for a friendly match late Friday night November 11 – with a Norwegian referee. Black Lotus had invited the Scandinavian community in Hua Hin for dinner and music entertainment before showing the match on the big screen in the open air.
More than 50 Scandinavian and guests found their way less than 2 km from Banyan Golf Course, where Black Lotus is putting the finishing touches to a complex of 64 luxurious private pool villas located in the panoramic Western hills of Hua Hin.
In the middle of the beautiful Mango plantation close to the big tropical lake, the restaurant was wrapped in Nordic colors and welcomed the guests with drinks and later barbecued roast beef, scalloped potatoes and roast pork slowly cooked in the Weber barbecue grill. Of course it was served with red cabbage, pickles and three(!) kinds of brown gravy. The owner of Black Lotus, Lars Castenlund has been mastering the barbecue most of the day and also did the serving of the juicy meat.
With the full moon as a dramatic backdrop the skilled guitarist set a relaxed mood and soon all the tables were put together to make the Scandinavian conversation and drinks flow better. Killing time while waiting for the match to begin at 1 am was spent with changing to the official soccer t-shirts and with playful teasing between the two nations and a lot of guessing the outcome of the game.
While the 18,057 guests were freezing in Denmark’s football stadium no. 1, Parken, the Scandinavians in Hua Hin enjoyed homemade hotdogs to the cold beer during the first half of the game in front of the big screen.
The game ended 2-0 to Denmark. Nicklas Bendtner and Michael Krohn-Dehli provided for the cheerful moments and they did their bid to catch up with the statistical facts that; Sweden has won 45 out of the 102 matches, where Denmark had only won 39 times. The Swedish players had some good changes during the match, among others Emir Bairami who five minutes after Bendtner’s 1-0 score got very close to the goal, but the ball missed, bouncing off the goalpost.
