235: Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer, Manchester United, Panini Football Sticker Album, The Official PFA Collection, A-Z of ALL the Top Players from All the Top Teams in ‘97

Coursework season has recently come to a close at work and it’s hard to tell who is more relieved. For students there is the catharsis of handing in a significant piece of work which has caused several sleepless nights while for teachers it means we can actually finish up the content for the upcoming public exams. The tight word count often leaves students needing to cut towards the deadline and my advice is always for them to read their work aloud as it often highlights repetition, typos and waffle. Despite the word limit for this particular blog being forgotten a long time ago I still ask my long suffering wife to listen to my posts before I upload them for the aforementioned reasons. She’s only fallen asleep a couple of times in the last six years.

She did have a little chuckle for herself at the mention of Swiss side BSC Young Boys’ home ground, Stadion Wankdorf, last time out which led me to reference an American Football team my old man had mentioned having the nickname ‘the Wankers’. Sadly, like so many good stories (and quite a few from my Dad), it proved to be an urban myth. What did emerge from our mining was the Peruvian team Deportivo Wanka who, besides having an excellent name, also moved stadiums in 2004 to a ground so far above sea level it threatened to give their opponents altitude sickness in an attempt to avoid relegation. Moving away from onanism we have fallen into similar traps of wanting a good story to be true on these very pages and the good people of the internet have been on hand to, politely, let us know there was a Matty Appleby impersonator on Twitter and, more forcibly, tell us Matt Targett wasn’t left behind in South Korea during pre-season training. Sadly these people weren’t on hand when Panini joined forces with the PFA back in 1996.

Above we can see a very youthful looking Ole Gunnar Solskjaer shortly after his arrival at Manchester United. According to the quote beside the sticker the striker had big plans at Old Trafford stating “I won the Norwegian Cup with Molde. Now I want the European Cup with Manchester United.” It took three seasons, during which Solskjaer scored 46 goals, but he scored the winning goal in the Champions League final in 1999 as United ran out 2-1 winners against Bayern Munich to secure a remarkable treble. Solskjaer may appear to be something of a Norwegian Nostradamus here but the quote was clearly bollocks as he arrived at Molde a season after they had won the Norwegian Cup. His goals did fire the newly promoted side to a second place finish in the 1995 Tippeligaen and demonstrated the prowess he had shown in front of goal for Clausenengen in his youth where he found the net 115 times in 109 games across the third and fourth tiers of Norwegian football.

His fine goalscoring record and youthful looks led to Solskjaer being nicknamed ‘the Baby Faced Assassin’ and the wags at Panini felt the need to tell his new English fans that he “might look like he should turn up for games with a school satchel thrown over his shoulder”. There was something evergreen about his performances for United between 1996 and 2003 where he scored for fun and helped the Red Devils to five Premier League titles, one FA Cup, three Charity Shields and the European Cup mentioned earlier. His final four seasons at Old Trafford were marred by injury and he called time on his playing career in 2007 at just 34 years old but still looked remarkably fresh faced when he returned to the dugout as manager of Molde in 2011. Even the stress of managing Manchester United in their post-Jose Mourinho psychodrama era didn’t seem to impact his boyish visage although he was notably greyer when the wheels came off in late 2021. 

The star studded United sides that Solskjaer was part of make his incredible goalscoring record even more impressive as the Norwegian was often competing for a first team berth. Andy Cole, Teddy Sheringham and then Dwight Yorke often started ahead of him after his debut season before Ruud van Nistelrooy and a further forward Paul Scholes pushed him down the pecking order. Undeterred he carved out a reputation as a super sub and his manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, often called upon him at “squeaky bum time” due to his intense focus on the game while on the bench. Solskjaer took pride in this reflecting that he always wondered “how can I do the most damage for the opposition if I come on?” As well as his infamous strike to win the Champions League, where he entered the fray with just ten minutes remaining, his first ever United goal against Blackburn Rovers came just six minutes after he came off the bench while he struck four times in twelve minutes against Nottingham Forest after coming on late in the second half. He also earned a special place in United fans’ hearts for his last minute red card against Newcastle United. Having only been on the pitch for ten minutes his desperate hack at Rob Lee to prevent a certain goal demonstrated his commitment to his team and the fact that, deep down, we all love a bit of shithousery.

As a player Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored 282 goals in 529 club games, 23 in 67 international caps and won a host of domestic and continental trophies although, as we have established, not the Norwegian Cup. He did eventually get his hands on the trophy as manager of Molde in 2013 so perhaps he had access to a time machine back in 1996. Based on some of the other achievements in his career you wouldn’t put it past him. Nevertheless a lesson in the importance of proofreading and the reliability of source material which has been a challenge for a couple of sticker book manufacturers. Every day’s a school day.