Asbjørn Halvorsen (3 December 1898 – 16 January 1955) was a Norwegian footballer, who played as a centre-half for Sarpsborg FK and Hamburger SV. He was capped 19 times playing for Norway, and was a part of the Norwegian team who competed in the 1920 Summer Olympics. He was later Secretary general of the Norwegian Football Association, and acted as head coach of the Norwegian national team.
Biography [edit]
He was a centre-half who played 19 times for the Norwegian national team, and won the Norwegian Cup in 1917[1] as captain of Sarpsborg FK. Aged 18 years and 318 days, he is the youngest captain in a Norwegian Cup final.[2] After his playing career ended, he became general secretary of the Norwegian Football Association, and he is regarded as the architect behind the Norwegian "Bronze Team" that famously finished third in the 1936 Olympics.
Between 1922 and 1934, Halvorsen played in Germany for Hamburger SV, where he won the German championships in 1923 and 1928.[1] He returned to his home country in 1934, and was hired as general secretary of the NFF. This job also made him head of the national team's selection committee, and in the years before World War II, he also acted as national team coach.
With Halvorsen at the helm, Norway won the Bronze medals at the 1936 Olympics, and qualified for the 1938 World Cup. This was Norway's first and only appearance in the World Cup finals until the 1990s.
During the war, Halvorsen was one of the figureheads of the Norwegian sports boycott. Practically all organized sport ceased its operations during the German occupation, and as a result, Halvorsen was arrested and placed in a concentration camp.[3] He was imprisoned at Møllergata 19 for one day, then in Grini concentration camp from August 1942 to July 1943, then in Natzweiler-Struthof, Neckarelz and Vaihingen an der Enz concentration camps.[4] He returned home after the war, and remained general secretary of the NFF until his death in 1955.
References [edit]
| Persondata |
| Name |
Halvorsen, Asbjorn |
| Alternative names |
|
| Short description |
Norwegian footballer and manager |
| Date of birth |
3 December 1898 |
| Place of birth |
|
| Date of death |
16 January 1955 |
| Place of death |
|
