Frank Andersson – his brother dropped out of the documentary on TV4

The TV4 documentary “My Father Frank Andersson” is about how the fighter’s eldest son, Isac, 23, tries to understand more about his father.

Frank Andersson was an absent father. Isac was seven years old when he met his father. It was three years before they met again.

Interviews with various family members and friends of Frank Andersson are interspersed with older articles from television and radio.

But one important person is missing from the big bet: Frank Andersson’s brother, Tommy Andersson, 68.

“It is not a legacy we are talking about”

Tommy was next to Frank Andersson in the hospital when the sports star died from complications related to heart surgery. But Tommy Andersson skipped the documentary when he understood that the TV4 show would also cover the fact that Frank Andersson and Tommy Andersson’s father John, in the 1970s, was sentenced to three years in prison for stealing cash in transit. . Explain the decision.

– If the focus was on children, I don’t think they have to carry it in their luggage. It’s enough that we have it. It’s not a legacy we’re talking about, says Tommy Andersson.

– I told him: “If you bring John, you can take the parts from me because then I don’t want to be with him.” The story has been known for a long time and I have told it to my children myself, but I don’t think Frank’s children have to put up with it.

The events naturally affected Tommy Andersson and his brothers.

– Frank had the ability to blame everything on things. For me, it became a reason to think “don’t do it because then your children can suffer”, so I took advantage of the misery instead of being dejected by it, he says.

“It was devastating for me”

During the recording of TV4, Tommy Andersson also corrected information about the father’s arrest for the production company. Frank Andersson said in interviews that he was present when police arrived at his home. One of the interviews, on SVT, is shown in the documentary.

– It’s wrong when Frank says “I was watching the Olympics when two long coats came in.” Only I was there. Frank was not there.

The memory of the event is strong.

– It was devastating for me, of course. He was upset because he wanted to know what it was about, they didn’t say anything. He was young and in shock. And dad said there was no danger and “I’m going home tomorrow because I haven’t done anything.” I trusted him because I loved him. And there I sat alone then, says Tommy Andersson.

– We all felt ashamed when it happened. Then we visited him in different institutions and then he became my father again. And I worked with him when he came out and then he was a much loved co-worker and a citizen like everyone else.

“It could have reflected Frank’s life differently”

Self-employed Tommy Andersson has close contact with Frank’s son Isac. He likes the parts of the show that are about his brother’s children. Frank Andersson left five children from four different relationships. And in the documentary, Isac, Montana, Mira, Winston and Mileon gather in front of Frank Andersson’s gravestone in Håjum Cemetery in Trollhättan.

– I think it was nice with the children, says Tommy Andersson.

– And I think I should have had even more about all the children. And I talked to Isac and told him that I think he behaved as well as you. And I hope the kids keep in touch after the TV show. So I think they could have reflected Frank’s life differently.

He thinks the TV show could have found more positive angles.

– Everyone knows that he was a careless person. One could, for example, have spun all his ideas that he was very early with. Entrepreneur Frank was early for both the gym and loose candies and more, says Tommy Andersson.

Two years have passed since Frank Andersson passed away, at age 62.

Tommy Andersson talks about the conversation at the hospital lately.

They talked about the importance of family, children and siblings.

– Athlete Frank was divine. But he was not a world champion as a man and a father. He was extremely nice and good when you hung out with him, when there were no demands. There was always a lot of heartfelt laughs. But as a brother, I can ignore some aspects of him. As a child, you may not have felt the same love.

Frank Andersson had decided to change his life.

– Said, “When this is over, I’ll come down to you, then I’ll relax and then we’ll try to put our lives together.” Now he didn’t have that opportunity.

Martin Nygren, executive producer of TV4, acknowledges the discussion with Tommy Andersson.

– The father and the robbery felt like a pretty big piece of the jigsaw puzzle that we tried to put around the man Frank Andersson, so we still did the journalistic evaluation that he does the job, he says.

On the brother’s reprimand for how the father was arrested, he continues.

– It was more important to let Frank’s own words tell that story than exactly how it happened, because it was not what was important to us, but the anxiety that Frank had about what happened, says Martin Nygren.