Norwegian interest in Pars

Coaches and youth players from Norway visit Dunfermline Athletic to establish a link of knowledge sharing.

There were Scandinavian interests training with Dunfermline last week. Three coaches and two youth players from Stavanger in Norway were visitors to the club as they came to see what they could learn from the Fifer's coaching methods.

Athletic Director Audun Johannessen and coaches Tor Magne Madsen and Glenn Knutsen watched training at Pitreavie and attended the first team match against Aberdeen. The Friday night match also meant that they could take in Dundee United's home match on Saturday before flying back from Aberdeen on Sunday.

The Norwegians are hoping to develop a relationship with Dunfermline Athletic so that players and coaches can be exchanged to boost the success of both clubs. As in Scotland there is a need in Norway to bring players through a youth system and into the first team.

Audun Sten Johannessen is a former manager of Viking Stavanger and in 1988 he was responsible for alerting Pars Manager at the time, Jim Leishman, to sign Kristiansand born, Vetle Andersen.

His father was stationed in Shetland and Dunfermline during the Second World War and while here he played for Steelend Victoria. Audun started to support Dunfermline and his wife shares his love of Scotland. He explained:-

"I am now the manager of Hundv?g. It is a small local football club in Stavanger with approximately 600 members. We have 50 teams covering all ages from six upwards. We are a lower level club but the difference is that we have no schools football. All over Norway they come in at night to football clubs.

Coaches accompanying Audun were A team coach Tor Magne Madsen and U19 coach Glenn Knutsen. The players Preben Erland (20) and Michel McCabe (15) joined the Pars under 19s training. Michel's father Mike was a trainee at Spurs and played for Troms? and Viking Stavanger.

"We are taking the chance to let these players develop by bringing them over for a week as well as me and Glenn as coaches have a discussion with Jim Leishman, Hamish French, Stephen Wright and Grant . Discover how you do things and it is a development for us as coaches to see how things are."

The visitors observed the biggest difference between the two approaches being the attack mindedness of the Scots:-

"We concentrate more on the structure of the team and defending well. Here there is much more attention to ball possession, focus on passes and making chances. We have more focus on stopping the goals.

More players are expected to visit from Norway before the end of this year and there is an invitation to the Dunfermline coaching staff to cross the North Sea to see first hand how the youth system works there.