Faroes don’t need a woolly bobble hat to pose a threat
THERE wasn’t a woolly bobble hat in sight in Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium on Sunday night. But when Sonni Nattestad headed the Faroe Islands into a shock lead against Austria, bitter memories were briefly dredged up of one of international football’s biggest-ever shocks.
On September 12, 1990, the team from the North Atlantic archipelago exploded onto the football map with victory in their first competitive match; an opening Euro 92 qualifier against an Austria side who had just finished behind hosts Italy and Czechoslovakia in Group A of the 1990 World Cup finals.
With no grass pitch meeting UEFA standards in the Faroes, the match was held in Landskrona in Sweden. Those were the days before the phrase ‘no easy games at international level’ were dished out as pre-match platitudes to minnows.
Instead, Austria’s star striker Toni Polster predicted a 10-0 win for his side, who promptly cancelled their final training session in favour of going to Copenhagen to watch Denmark host Wales.
In the event, a nation of eight million people — up against one with a population of just 47,500 — was humiliated thanks to a secondhalf goal from Torkil Nielsen.
However, the true hero was Jens Martin Knudsen, the irrepressible Faroe Islands goalkeeper, who doubled as a forklift truck driver in a fish factory. Knudsen had worn a white bobble hat on the pitch ever since suffering a concussion at the age of 13.
‘After that Austria game we could have been the biggest fools in Europe — and if we had lost 10-0 I would have been the biggest fool in the world,’ the cult hero (below) later recalled.
‘A lot of big sides watched me after that and I know Everton were one of them. But they didn’t sign me and I believe it was because people didn’t treat me seriously.’
While Knudsen became a media star, later invited by David Baddiel and Frank Skinner to recreate the victory on their Fantasy Football TV show, Austria boss Josef Hickersberger was forced to resign the day after the game.
‘It was a personal tragedy for me, the bitterest moment of my career,’ he reflected.
While Austria fought back to win 3-1 on Sunday, it was a timely reminder to Scotland — if one were needed — of the nuisance value of the Faroes.
Their introduction to football by visiting Scottish fishermen in 1872 came back to haunt the Scots 127 and 130 years later — with Knudsen in the Faroes goal both times either side of an injury-hit spell at Ayr United.
In June 1999, Faroes defender Hans Hansen effectively ended Craig Brown’s hopes of outright qualification for Euro 2000 with a late equaliser in Toftir after Scotland had taken the lead through Allan Johnston.
The humiliation against a team of teachers, carpenters, electricians and postmen became even worse when defender Matt Elliott was sent off for lashing out at striker Todi Jonsson.
The Scots clinched a play-off against England but were defeated 2-1 on aggregate despite a 1-0 victory at Wembley. It was the start of Scotland’s plunge into the international wilderness that will finally end this summer at the rearranged Euro 2020.
But there was ignominy again in Toftir in September 2002 when two goals from school teacher John Petersen had the Faroes dreaming of marking the 12th anniversary of their 1-0 win over Austria by claiming the scalp of Berti Vogts’ Scots.
Second-half goals from Paul Lambert then Barry Ferguson, lobbing Knudsen seven minutes from time, would salvage a point in the opening Euro 2004 qualifier.
Fast forward nearly two decades and one of Europe’s tiniest footballing nations have been making notable progress at club level.
Last year, for the first time since Knudsen was in his bobble-hatted pomp, Faroese football was back in the global spotlight.
With other leagues struggling with Covid-19, the virus-free archipelago kicked off their new Betri League, screened on television in Denmark with networks desperately searching for live football to show.
In September, Betri League side KI Klaksvik were just 90 minutes away from becoming the first Faroes club side to reach the Europa League group stage.
Having beating Dinamo Tbilisi 6-1, they lost 3-1 to Irish side Dundalk. Rivals B36 Torshavn then beat three opponents in a row before losing to CSKA Sofia in the third qualifying round. Steve Clarke’s side should have enough to overcome a national team ranked 107th in the world with the minimum of fuss tomorrow night. However, with Scotland stuck on two points from their opening two qualifying matches against Austria and Israel, a third stumble against the Faroes would mean the end of another World Cup dream. And Ireland’s 1-0 home loss to 98thranked Luxembourg only serves as a further warning that international upsets remain a clear and present danger in 2021.