The travel guide I used on a recent trip to Oslo suggested visiting the museum dedicated to sculptor Gustav Vigeland (who was known for depicting human adversity, living a solitary life, going through two divorces, having a disliking for dogs, and being rumored to have sympathized with the Nazis, with his most famous piece taking 14 years to finish and resembling a massive phallus). So, I decided to go. Yet, while walking through the adjacent park, I noticed some floodlights.
Curious, I followed them and stumbled upon a small sports stadium where a football match was underway. It was significant enough to have an entrance fee of 100 kroner—just under £10. Vigeland quickly faded from my mind as I joined a handful of other spectators on a modest terrace. This wasn’t mentioned in the guidebook. After some effort, I discovered that I was watching a match from Norway’s fourth division, where Lokomotiv Oslo was trailing 2-1 at home against Skjetten in a game so obscure that no detailed accounts—nor even a record of the goalscorers—seem to exist online. Nonetheless, it turned out to be one of the highlights of my trip.
There’s a unique thrill in accidentally discovering a football match while on holiday. It’s not about planning your entire trip around your team’s pre-season games; it’s about the serendipity of finding a match while exploring a new place.
This has always fascinated me. In 1989, as a 12-year-old visiting relatives in Canada, I saw Niagara Falls, the CN Tower, and the newly built Toronto Sky Dome. Yet, one of the most enjoyable moments came from a sunny Sunday evening spent with my dad and uncle watching the Toronto Blizzard take on Montreal Supra at Centennial Park Stadium, supported by a crowd of a few hundred.
The experience was completely different from the professional matches I was used to back home. With my dad’s camera in hand, I comfortably positioned myself behind the goal, free from interference, capturing some amateur action shots. “Did you capture that one?” the cheerful goalkeeper of Supra asked me after a Blizzard shot went astray. Paul Peschisolido, then a young player making a name for himself in the Blizzard, stood out as their best player, assisting both goals. I’d have remembered him even if he hadn’t later had a lengthy career in England.
The following year, a dreary summer spent at a caravan park in Anglesey brightened when I learned Sunderland, fresh from their promotion to the First Division, were playing two local pre-season friendlies. My dad and I attended as they struggled to achieve narrow wins against an Anglesey XI and Bangor City, leaving us questioning how they might avoid an immediate drop back to Division Two. Spoiler: they didn’t.
As an adult, I’ve kept my eye out for games while on holiday. In 2009, I visited Reykjavik, where Iceland was reeling from the effects of the previous year’s financial crisis. For most of the trip, I was the typical tourist, exploring the Golden Circle and the Blue Lagoon. However, I later ventured to Laugardalsvollur, the national stadium, to watch a domestic league match between Fram and Hafnarfjordur.
Even the locals seemed unimpressed, as around 900 fans filled a stadium meant for 10,000. A large press box designed for 50 reporters was occupied by just one man in a flat cap who scribbled notes during the first half before leaving, and four uninterested teenage girls with their feet up on the barriers. They didn’t seem very focused on Fram’s goalkeeper, Hannes Thor Halldorsson, who had yet to achieve the dual heights of playing for Iceland in a World Cup and directing a music video for one of their Eurovision entries.
As Halldorsson made save after save, limiting a dominant Hafnarfjordur to a mere 2-0 victory, a woman beside me turned and spoke in Icelandic. I apologized for not understanding, explaining I was a journalist on holiday from England.
“This referee is terrible,” she remarked. Critiquing match officials: a universal language. We engaged in further conversation, her interest piqued by the presence of an Englishman at an Icelandic league game, before parting ways at the end of the match. The next day, while having lunch at a downtown café, I was taken aback to see her join me at my table.
She sat down, and we discussed Iceland’s financial crisis, as well as the UK’s stringent response led by then-Chancellor Alistair Darling, and the implications it held for the future. “The party’s over for us,” she declared. Then, with a flash of anger, she added, “When you return to England, tell them that Alistair Darling is a fucking asshole.” No guidebook or museum has ever introduced me to a place in such a profound way.
