Magnetic Fields: Football on the Lofoten Islands and in Southern Troms.

Words: Dave Harry

Images: Dave Harry

You’ll have seen photos of Henningsvaer Stadion before. Drone pictures of it feature regularly on the most beautiful football grounds in the world lists but it wouldn’t make mine.

It’s nice but it’s not even the best one in the Arctic Circle.

I was lucky enough to spend nearly a week on the Lofoten Islands and in Southern Troms, taking in six games and enjoying the most spectacular scenery I’ve seen anywhere in my journeys across the 55 countries that make-up UEFA.

Henningsvaer is seldom used these days but that doesn’t stop football fans flocking to it and when I visit, plenty of football tourists stop by but very few go to any of the other grounds. Their loss.

Take Reine/Flakstad for example. I entered Lofoten via the Bodo to Moskenes ferry route and Reine is the closest ground to the terminal. Its breathtaking.

It is Norway. Literally.

The pitch is surrounded with wooden racks used to dry fish on, steep mountain peeks and the Norwegian Sea; you can see small villages in the near distance and fishing trawlers returning home from a day’s catch as the game takes place.

The club are welcoming but I decline the suggestion from one fan that I climb the mountain to get the best view of the pitch, its perfect enough at ground level. Well, that’s my excuse anyway.

©Dave Harry/ Terrace Edition. Ballstad UIL.

Then there’s Ballstad, the first game of my trip. It’s set at the basin of a fjord, tucked just a few hundred metres in from the coast.

The surrounds are beautiful and there’s the unusual sight of a stumpy lighthouse in the corner of the pitch but it’s the view from the hillside that impresses the most; my trainers and jeans get soaked as I climb up the rain sodden landscape but it is worth every step, the view is spectacular and it’s a good spot to watch the early stages of the game and to see the smoke from Ballstad’s trademark pitch entrance to orange pyro, rise up into the sky.

Elsewhere, the settings don’t quite reach those levels, but they’re still impressive.

Medkila IL in Harstad, is one of the older stadiums (it opened in 1962), and though the ground is pretty conventional there is no escaping the sight of hills, sea and fjords; Mjølner play at the Narvik Stadion whose brutalist stand and terracing contrasts nicely with its surrounds; whilst Sportklubben Hardhaus play on the opposite side of the sea to the iron ore shipping docks of Narvik.

On the remote spot of west Langøya, the beautifully named FK Luna have a ground that ticks every football romantic’s box – an old wooden stand, rugged but beautiful scenery and country houses nestling alongside the goal.

Despite or perhaps because of, the atrocious weather that comes in for the middle portion of the game, I feel I’m in one of football’s most wonderful and hardy outposts, and I leave as a fan.

The people I meet are incredibly kind. Unbeknown to me I promise, I’d taken out of date Norwegian Krona to use on the trip yet clubs either offer to take it and exchange it at their bank on my behalf, or give me complimentary coffee complete with the local speciality of vaffel med brunost (waffles with brown cheese – its lovely!) to warm me up.

En route to FK Luna, I found myself surrounded by players of the visiting side (Høken) as we wait for a road tunnel to open. Their team manager chews the fat with me about football and life in the Arctic Circle and even during the game, he checks up on my well being and asks what I think – I promise to return to watch a game at Høken’s ground and I will.

Its not a cheap place to visit, food and drink is prohibitive and the accommodation so pricey I spent my first and last night’s sleeping in my car – which was worth it just to see the magnificent sunrise - but it’s a joy to explore and with so much stunning scenery on offer for free, you can’t complain.

It’s a cross between Iceland and the Faroes but on steroids. It is stunning.