This weekend Dunfermline Athletic Football Club provides a very warm welcome to a man who has not set foot in the place for 32 years but who nevertheless has left his indelible mark on the history of this club.  After what seems like a lifetime away, former Pars goalkeeper GEIR KARLSEN returns to his old stamping ground to remind himself of old times and to take in today's match against Rangers.

For younger and uninitiated fans, Geir Karlsen caused quite a lot of excitement when he arrived at Dunfermline in October 1973.  A larger than life character in every sense, the giant Norwegian goalkeeper was signed by then Manager George Miller from Rosenborg, but since he was an amateur there was no transfer fee involved.  

It caused quite a stir at the time because Celtic had tried, unsuccessfully as it happened, to sign the 6' 4" keeper the season before after his heroics at Parkhead for Rosenborg in a European match.  He was also a foreign player, a rarity at that time, and a current international into the bargain having appeared 29 times for his native Norway before arriving at East End Park.

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Geir made his Dunfermline debut against Hibs on 15th December 1973, a match that commenced with a minute's silence respecting sixties hero John Lunn who had died from leukaemia that week. George Miller wrote in the match programme that day:-

"A world class keeper and the type of personality the game needs.  I am confident that he will enhance our chances for the future and that he will play his part helping to attract bigger crowds to East End Park."

Records are unavailable to check the exact line ups for that match but again the programme predicts the teams as follows:-

DUNFERMLINE: Geir Karlsen; Bobby Cameron, Jim Wallace, Kenny Thomson, Jim Leishman, Alex Kinninmonth; Denis Nelson, Jim Scott, Ken Mackie, George Shaw, Jackie Sinclair
HIBERNIAN: Jim McArthur; John Brownlie, Eric Schaedler, Pat Stanton, Jim Black, John Blackley; Alex Edwards, Jim O'Rourke, Alan Gordon, John Cropley, Arthur Duncan.

The Pars lost 3-1 and no doubt the match will be equally well remembered by Jim Leishman since he scored the last of his six goals for Dunfermline that day.  Around East End Park that month Chairman John Yellowlees opened the Paragon Social Club with its resident group - the Deep Cove Trio.

The international goalkeeper remained on song for the Pars and was ever-present and first choice keeper until the end of season 1974-1975.  At that point Geir decided to return to Norway and signed for Valerenga for a fee of £4,300.  Geir was unfortunate in that he joined a very young Dunfermline team and a club that was struggling to cope with crippling financial debt.  After making a promising start to season 1974-1975, the team's fortunes took a downward tumble and the club missed out on a place in the inaugural Premier Division in 1975.  As it happened, Dunfermline missed him badly and were relegated the following season, but that is another story!

Geir arrives at Dunfermline for tomorrow's match with wife Rognhild, son Christer, and a Norwegian journalist and TV crew!  Christer now works as a sports commentator with Norway's national TV station TV Norge, and their TV2 is a bit like our Sky Sports or Setanta.  They are planning to film Geir's return to East End Park as part of a TV newspaper series that they are doing about old sporting heroes who performed in another country.  The basic idea is that they return to their sporting 'roots' and relive some of their former memories.  Sounds good to us!

Geir's son Christer helped us to fill in some of the gaps from the time that he left Dunfermline:

"When he moved to Valerenga they were a high profile club in Norway.  My Dad stayed there for three years before moving back home to Skien where he played with our local team Odd for two years before retiring as a player at the age of 33.  He had a two-year period as Coach there too and the club had its most successful spell ever at that time being promoted and reaching the semi-final of the national Cup competition.  They are now a Norwegian Premier League club."

"After that, he decided to go back to school and studied social sciences.  And ever since he has been working as a youth social worker, working with young people who are recovering from drugs, have come out of prison and so on."

According to Christer, Geir is thrilled about his return trip:

"He really is very excited because it is his first time back in Dunfermline.  I've been to England with him a couple of times, but never here.  He talks all the time about Dunfermline and theirs is the first result that he looks for when he opens the Sunday papers.  He is looking forward to meeting Jim Leishman again because they played together.  He has told me some stories about Jim including one about my Mum leaving Jim's 20^th birthday party because Jim started to sing!"

Jim who naturally denied all knowledge did have this to say:

"Geir was a real character at the club - a huge man with a big presence.  I remember that he used to do a scissors kick under the bar - I don't know how he didn't manage to injure himself.  Of course it will be a great honour to welcome him back to the club and I'm sure older fans who remember him will give him a great welcome."

Jim is planning to give him an early welcome by having the Norwegian group as his guests at Saturday's Burns Supper evening at East End Park.  For our part, we would like to extend a very warm welcome to Geir and his family for tomorrow's match against Rangers, and express our wish that, regardless of the result, he will come back soon!

Footnote: Mr Leishman would like to point out that he did score one more goal for Dunfermline - from the penalty spot in a friendly v Sheffield Wednesday.