Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s father was a champion wrestler – but the Man Utd boss was too small and quit for football
MANCHESTER UNITED may look very different today if Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had stuck with his first sport – GRECO-ROMAN WRESTLING.
The United boss, who got the permanent job on Friday after a brilliant spell in temporary charge, initially tried to follow in his father’s footsteps before switching to football.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s father Oivind, right, was Norway’s No1 Greco-Roman wrestler for six years[/caption]
Oivind Solskjaer had been a star in his day, crowned the Norwegian champion six years in a row between 1966 and 1971.
He’d first got into the sport while on his year-long national service in the Norwegian army.
Solskjaer Sr had also competed at European level and travelled with the national squad to the World Wrestling Championships in Edmonton, Canada, in 1970.
Ole Gunnar was first introduced to a wrestling mat when he was eight and tried it for a couple of years before making the switch to football.
Although his former gymnastics teacher, Yngver Johansen, said Solskjaer was athletically gifted and excelled in all sports, he was perhaps too small for the grappling world, with a growth spurt not coming until much later.
Frank Olsen, a pensioner who knows the Solskjaers through amateur football club Clausenengen joked that Ole Gunnar was “not much of a wrestler”.
He told SunSport: “His father took him to the wrestling arena and he tried the sport, but it didn’t suit him.
“He was small for his age.”
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And in an interview while at Molde, the Manchester United boss admitted he was never into it.
“I wrestled between the ages of eight and 10 but I was training with one of the best wrestlers in Norway in my age group,” he told FourFourTwo.
“I was being tossed around, getting dizzy, getting headaches… I was never into it!”
The Manchester United boss later admitted he hated being ‘tossed around’[/caption]
Solskjaer Sr also competed at European and at the World Wrestling Championships in 1970[/caption]