‘We were pioneers’: the Norwegians who transformed the Premier League before Erling Haaland

W hen Alf-Inge Haaland made his Nottingham Forest debut in February 1994, featuring in a resounding win over Leicester, it was the latest step in a quiet revolution that helped define the Premier League’s course. Haaland and his compatriot Lars Bohinen were heavily involved in Forest’s return to the top flight that spring and, back then, neither player could have predicted where Norway’s influence on English football would lead.

“We were kind of pioneers at the time,” says Bohinen, who joined Forest from Young Boys that season, of the influx that crossed the North Sea. “We didn’t make any waves, we were just constantly being professional and producing performances. I think that’s why we had so many players doing well in England.”

Erling Haaland became the 74th Norwegian to play in the Premier League upon debuting for Manchester City last August, following in his father’s footsteps 28 and a half years on; should he fire them to Champions League success and a treble on Saturday he will match the achievements of Ronny Johnsen and, famously, Ole Gunnar Solskjær in 1999. The English league’s primacy will be underlined if City win and there is a clear lineage back to the days when Norway’s exports helped it on its way.

“We were a decent generation of players but we were also able to adapt quickly,” says Bohinen of the 1990s brood. “When one succeeded then so did the next, and the third. It became a sort of snowball effect.”

Before the Bosman ruling opened up Europe’s transfer market, Norwegians were the Premier League’s must-have foreign accessory. Between 1992 and the end of 1995 their representatives totalled 13; Swedes and Danes, by contrast, accounted for eight apiece. Cultural similarities helped, as did English