Cod Almighty | Diary
What Harry Kane could learn from Knut Anders Fostervold
28 March 2019
Basque Diary writes: This week is a very slow news week for the Mariners. Aside from John Welsh departing, the reserves losing to Rotherham in the Central League on Tuesday and James McKeown not being named in the fourth flight team of the year, not much has happened.
It’s one of those seasons where the last couple of months drag on as a supporter because you know that we’re not going down but we’re not going up either. The excitement drains away and the longing for next season grows ever stronger.
That brings me to the news that the England international Harry Kane has said – probably more in passing than anything, but the national press has jumped on it – that he would like to be a kicker in the NFL one day.
Kane’s NFL dreams made me think of former Grimsby player Knut Anders Fostervold. Fostervold joined the Mariners on loan during the 2000-01 season having had a successful career at Molde in his native Norway.
His career at Blundell Park was short-lived, as was his time in football after his loan on the south bank of the Humber. Fostervold made a very successful move into cycling after his football career was cut short due to injury.
He went into time trialling in particular, where he won a bronze medal at the Norweigan championships in 2005, only two years after taking up the sport seriously. He followed this success with another bronze in 2006 and silver in 2007. In 2007 he finished behind only Edvald Boassan Hagen who would go on to win several stages of the Tour de France. Fostervold also won the Danish individual pursuit at the national track championships and then the road team time trial in 2007.
The reward for these strong performances at his home championships was a place in the Norweigan squad at the 2006 and 2007 Road World Time Trial Championships. Fostervold didn’t fare as strongly on the world stage, finishing 43rd and 51st respectively, but he was a contemporary of cycling greats such as Bradley Wiggins, Vincenzo Nibali and Fabian Cancellara, to name but a few.
He now works as a cycling coach in Norway, following on from the success he had in his new sport. Kane’s dream might seem fanciful but a former Grimsby player has shown us all that a conversion to a new sport can be made and at the very highest level too.