Jan Åge Fjørtoft

Jan Åge Fjørtoft (born 10 January 1967 in Gursken[2]) is a former Norwegian footballer. A powerful centre forward with goalscoring ability, he played professionally in Norway, Austria, England and Germany. He appeared in 71 international matches (15 as captain) and scored 20 goals for Norway. His nickname was Fjøra, meaning The Feather in a Norwegian dialect.

Jan Åge Fjørtoft
Fjørtoft in 2008
Personal information
Full name Jan Åge Fjørtoft[1]
Date of birth (1967-01-10) 10 January 1967
Place of birth Gursken, Møre og Romsdal, Norway
Height 1.92 m (6 ft 4 in)
Position(s) Centre forward
Youth career
Gursken
1982–1983 IL Hødd
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1984–1985 IL Hødd 39 (34)
1986–1987 HamKam 44 (17)
1988–1989 Lillestrøm 33 (20)
1989–1993 Rapid Wien 129 (63)
1993–1995 Swindon Town 72 (27)
1995–1997 Middlesbrough 41 (10)
1997–1998 Sheffield United 34 (19)
1998 Barnsley 34 (9)
1998–2001 Eintracht Frankfurt 52 (14)
2001 Stabæk 15 (6)
2002 Lillestrøm 4 (0)
Total 497 (219)
National team
1984 Norway U19 6 (5)
1985–1987 Norway U21 14 (6)
1986–1996 Norway 71 (20)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Playing career

Fjørtoft started his senior-career at Hødd (2. league Norway) as 17-year-old, scoring 9 league goals in 17 matches in the 1984 season. In the 1985 season he scored 25 league goals in 22 games.

After starting in Norway with Hødd, HamKam and Lillestrøm and spending four seasons in the Austrian Bundesliga with Rapid Wien – where he became only the second foreigner to be Player of the Year in 1989 – Fjørtoft spent several seasons in England during the 1990s. He joined Swindon Town in the summer of 1993 following their promotion to the Premiership, costing the Wiltshire club a record £500,000. He had a slow start to his career at Swindon endured a terrible start to their first ever top division campaign, failing to win any of their first 16 games. Fjørtoft failed to find the net until after Christmas, but scored 13 goals from his final 17 games, including a hat-trick in a 3–1 win against Coventry City on 5 February 1994.[3] However, it was not enough to prevent Swindon from going down in bottom place with a mere five league wins having conceded 100 league goals.[4]

Fjørtoft continued to score frequently during 1994–95 and helped Swindon reach the League Cup semi-finals, but their league form was disastrous once more and he transferred to Middlesbrough on 23 March 1995 for £1.3million.[5] By this stage, he had scored 25 goals in all competitions for the Robins and was one of the highest scorers in the English league that season.

Meanwhile, Fjørtoft was a regular player for Middlesbrough as soon as he joined the club, and helped them finish the season as Division One champions. Due to a restructuring of the league, they were the only team to gain automatic promotion to the Premiership in 1995. He was a regular player throughout the 1995–96 campaign and, as the Norwegian partnered Brazilian playmaker Juninho, Boro finished in a respectable 12th place; although they had occupied fourth place in late autumn, a disastrous run of form coinciding with an injury crisis during mid season sabotaged their hopes of European qualification or a title challenge. Fjørtoft had scored six goals from 26 Premier League games.[6]

But the arrival of Italian striker Fabrizio Ravanelli pushed him down the pecking order for 1996–97, and he was sold to Division One promotion chasers Sheffield United for £700,000 on 31 January 1997. In his final game for Middlesbrough Fjørtoft scored a crucial goal against Hednesford Town in the fourth round of the FA Cup.[7] Boro would go on to reach the final after his departure.

After the Blades lost to Crystal Palace in the playoff final, he played at United until 15 January 1998, when he joined newly promoted Barnsley to have another crack at the Premiership. He was unable though, to prevent Barnsley's only season at Premier League level ending in relegation, although scoring six goals in 15 Premiership games. He left Barnsley in November 1998 to join Eintracht Frankfurt, calling time on his five-year spell in England.

Fjørtoft's next stop came in Germany with Eintracht Frankfurt, where he spent three years (25 November 1998 – 31 May 2001). He became a cult hero for the club, scoring a decisive 89th-minute goal in the final game of the 1998–99 season, saying to himself melancholically: "probably the best goal this season", keeping Eintracht up.[8] He returned home to Norway with Stabæk, and finished his career with Lillestrøm in 2002, retiring at the age of 35.

International career

Between 1986 and 1996, Fjørtoft collected 71 caps for Norway, being part of the nation's squad in the 1994 FIFA World Cup, where he appeared as a starter against Mexico (1–0) and Italy (0–1).

International goals

Honours
Lillestrøm
Middlesbrough
Individual

Statistics
Club performance League Cup Other Other Total
SeasonClubDivision AppsGoals AppsGoals AppsGoals AppsGoals AppsGoals
Norway League Norwegian Cup Playoffs Europe Total
1986[10][11]Ham-Kam1. divisjon22736––2513
1987[10][11]22106520–3015
1988[10]Lillestrøm221432––2516
1989[10]11632–00148
Austria League Austrian Cup Supercup Europe Total
1989–90[12]Rapid WienBundesliga341753–634523
1990–91[12]331754–204021
1991–92[12]341636––3722
1992–93[12]281344–223419
England League FA Cup League Cup Other[n 1] Total
1993–94[5]Swindon TownPremier League36122110–3913
1994–95[5]Division One36152189204825
1994–95[13]Middlesbrough830000–83
1995–96[13]Premier League2860062–348
1996–97[13][14]512110–82
1996–97[14]Sheffield UnitedDivision One17100000312011
1997–98[14][15]1792231–2212
1997–98[14]BarnsleyPremier League1560000–156
1998–99[14]Division One1930064–257
Germany League DFB-Pokal DFB-Ligapokal Europe Total
1998–99[16]Eintracht FrankfurtBundesliga17600––176
1999–00[16]21512––227
2000–01[16]14311––154
Norway League Norwegian Cup — Europe Total
2001[10]StabækTippeligaen15632––188
2002[10]Lillestrøm4030–0070
Total Norway 96432117200011960
Austria 129631717—10515685
England 181658525165121987
Germany 521423——5417
Career total 45818548422716156548249

International

[17]

Norway national team
YearAppsGoals
198610
198720
198842
1989103
199093
199162
199240
199395
1994111
1995114
199640
Total7120

Retirement

After his retirement, Fjørtoft worked as a football commentator for NRK and did his coaching badges, but resigned when he took over the Director of Football role at Lillestrøm (LSK). After four and a half years as the director of football, he quit his job at LSK at the end of the 2008 season.

Since 2004 he has also worked as a pundit at Viasat. First as an anchor, but the last year you meet him around Europe doing his interviews with the players/coaches/leaders of the Champions League teams. He runs his own "Strategic Consultant – company" with customers in Norway and internationally.

He was chairman of MTG's foundation "MTG United for Peace" and later had the same role at Millicom.

2011-2014 he worked as a football pundit on Sky Germany.

Since 2008 Fjørtoft has worked as an advisor for the Norwegian Football Association. In that job being at "Handshake for Peace" from the start when the founder, Kjetil Siem; came up with the idea. April 2014 Fjørtoft was named Team manager of the National Team, working close with the national coach, Per-Mathias Høgmo.

In January 2015 Fjørtoft was chosen by the Minister for Sport of Norway to lead a Strategic Group that will advise the government how to use the sport in the best possible way for the society.

Personal life

Fjørtoft's son, Markus, played for the Duke Blue Devils soccer team and was drafted in 2018 by Seattle Sounders FC in Major League Soccer.[18] After a spell with Southern United in New Zealand, Markus signed for Scottish club Hamilton Academical in April 2019.[18] In September 2020 he signed for Scottish Championship side Greenock Morton. Markus has also worked as Fjørtoft's personal assistant at Viasat.

Notes
  1. Includes Anglo-Italian Cup (1994–95) and Football League play-offs (1997).

References
  1. "Jan Åge Fjørtoft" (in Norwegian). Football Association of Norway. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  2. Jan Åge Fjørtoft Archived 8 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine (in Norwegian). Store norske leksikon. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
  3. Slot, Owen (6 February 1994). "The age of Fjortoft". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 13 July 2009.
  4. "World Cup Connections: Jan Åage Fjørtoft". Swindon Town F.C. 15 June 2010. Archived from the original on 5 October 2011. Retrieved 26 May 2011.
  5. "Fjørtoft's Swindon Profile". Swindon Town. Archived from the original on 19 September 2012. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
  6. "Jan-Aage Fjortoft". sporting-heroes.net. Archived from the original on 20 December 2010. Retrieved 26 May 2011.
  7. Turnbull, Simon (27 January 1997). "Hednesford held at bay". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 7 November 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2010.
  8. "1999-2000" (in German). Eintracht Frankfurt. Archived from the original on 14 March 2012. Retrieved 26 May 2011.
  9. "Jan Fjørtoft". EU-Football.info. Archived from the original on 9 September 2013. Retrieved 19 July 2013.
  10. "Jan Åge Fjørtoft" (in Norwegian). NFF. Archived from the original on 18 January 2013. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
  11. "Jan Åge Fjørtoft" (in Norwegian). HamKam. Archived from the original on 3 September 2013. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  12. "Jan Age FJÖRTOFT" (in German). Rapid Wien. Archived from the original on 8 August 2013. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
  13. "Jan-Aage Fjortoft". 11v11.com. Archived from the original on 30 November 2013. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  14. "Jan-Aage Fjortoft". Soccerbase. Archived from the original on 16 November 2006. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
  15. "Jan Åge Fjørtoft". National Football Teams. Benjamin Strack-Zimmerman. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
  16. "Jan-Aage Fjörtoft". Fussballdaten.de (in German). Archived from the original on 6 October 2013. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
  17. Søfting, Thomas. "Jan Åge Fjørtoft". Archived from the original on 14 October 2013. Retrieved 19 July 2013.
  18. "Hamilton Accies: Markus Fjortoft, son of Jan Age, to sign in summer". BBC Sport. 18 April 2019. Archived from the original on 20 April 2019. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
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