Sunday 25th February 2024 – Danish SuperLiga – Vejle Stadium, Vejle, Denmark

There’s a myth that Denmark has no hills.  Flat as a pancake goes the story, but don’t believe that.  During my time living in Copenhagen, I once came across such a steep decline that someone was dry skiing down it.  I found out later it was man-made and so the story remained true.

Less than an hour after arriving in Vejle I could faithfully say that I’d busted the myth, as I sat halfway up a very steep incline in the Nørreskoven (“Old Forest”) on my way up to Vejle Stadium.  I wouldn’t say I was at peak fitness but twice a week trips to the gym to work on my cardio meant running up the stairs at home no longer left me panting like a dog.  But this was different gravy. 

Thanks to issues at Stansted with freezing fog then an unwillingness for the ground staff to do their job, my flight to the global HQ of Lego, Billund, smack-bang in the middle of the Jutland peninsula departed almost 3 hours late, the knock-on effect was I had less time to explore Vejle.

Not many people head for Vejle, Denmark’s 9th biggest city.  The whole city could go to a game in the London Stadium at the same time and still bring a friend or two, but that would be a really cruel punishment for anyone guilty of simply wanting to live on the east coast of Jutland.  Once known as the Manchester of Denmark, for its cotton mills rather than the guns, it is a compact city with decent transport links in all directions.  Rising to the north and south of the city are the forested hills, remnants of the ice age, that plunge steeply into the Vejle Fjord.  And it was on the north face of the hill I was currently “resting” on.

From my view point I could see the floodlights through the trees ahead and down the hill were the Bølgen, the iconic wave housing blocks that are one of the defining sights of the city.  I had to push on, with less than 30 minutes to kick off.  I wasn’t alone – a few other fans were feeling the effects, but we pushed through, leaving no man behind and finally, we made it.

The Vejle Stadium, opened in 2008, sits atop the hill, surrounded by the old forest.  It’s smart, functional with a modest capacity of 11,000.  The ground is not dissimilar to many others you’d see around the European top leagues – three stands that wrap around in uniformity, with the main stand housing the posh seats and hospitality lounge.

The stadium doesn’t give any real clues to the glorious history of the club that happened BC.  In Danish footballing terms, BC is 1992, the year that FC Copenhagen were formed by a merger of KB and B1903 and the subsequent relocation to Parken, the national stadium.  Even the league’s second biggest club, Brøndby IF, didn’t exist before 1964.  Vejle started life as a cricket team back in 1891 before realising there was no teams to play and converted to football in 1902. 

In 1977 former youth prodigy Allan Simonsen and a member of the famous Danish Championship winning sides of 1971 and 1972 because the first, and only Dane, to win the prestigious European Footballer of the Year award.  The club went on to win the title again in 1978 and 1984, before finishing runners up in 1996-97, the nearest the have got to any honours since the creation of FC Copenhagen.

In today’s modern Danish SuperLiga, every season is a challenge for Vejle, and other clubs of a similar size such as Viborg, Hvidovre and Randers.  They returned to the topflight in the summer and came into the game second from bottom, with just 15 points.  Today’s visitors Silkeborg were enjoying another good season, happy in 6^th place and had the support of a few hundred noisy fans who took up their spot on the east terrace behind the goal.

My email request for a press pass got slightly lost in translation as when I arrived I was handed a photographer’s bib and directed to pitch side.  Armed with just my iPhone I looked slightly out of place but wasn’t going to turn a gift horse in the mouth and spent the first half roving around the edge of the pitch with imposter syndrome trying to avoid getting in the way of the TV cameras, the bench and the ad boards.

My interest in Vejle peaked when Nathan Trott trotted out for the warmup.  The on-loan West Ham keeper had quickly become a favourite of the Crazy Reds, the hardcore Vejle fans since joining in 2022, the only English export on the field for both sides. 

The away side started strongly and were awarded a penalty on the half-hour mark when the ball appeared to hit the hand of Gundeland.  The referee played on and then appeared to receive a “word in his ear” that it was a penalty.  He pointed to the spot then was called to the pitchside monitor, where he changed the decision once again – no penalty.

Gundeland then played a figurative hand in the next attacking move that led to the home side’s opening goal, flicking the ball in from the right for the Greek Emmanouilidis, being watched by a scout from Panathinaikos, who I was chatting to before the game, to smash home at the near post.

I retreated to the main stand in the second half, grabbing one of the free blankets that everyone seemed to have.  The temperature had dropped significantly but the performance of the home side warmed up the majority of the 7,859 crowd.  The away side almost equalised when a shot from Tonni Adamsen’s shot hit the post and rolled across the line.  Then Trott pulled off a superb save from Thordarson.   Just when it looked as if an equaliser had to come, home side sealed the 3 points in the 79th minute when Raúl Albentosa turned in a loose ball from a corner.  Silkeborg had their chance to get back into the game two minutes later when Sonne brought down Onugkha in the area, but Nicolai Larson missed the spot kick.  Three valuable points for the home side secured.

What goes up, must come down and so my journey back to the city centre was much swifter down the hill and onto the train for a trip north to Århus for game two of a Danish Double.