Icelandic Footballers Playing in England

2:30p.m., Tue 20 Apr 2010

On a recent trip to Reykjavik I was told that the entire country has less inhabitants than the city of Sheffield. Given the mark the Icelandic nation has made on the world this seemed like an extra-ordinary claim. Back in the UK I repeated it to a friend who was less astounded at the numbers, and pooh-poohed the Icelandic contribution to the fields of sport and modern culture anyway.

Because I'm a pedant this, of course, became a challenge. I set out to document the Icelanders currently employed in English profesinal football (my pooh-poohing friend's field of expertise).

So here's some facts and figures (I say 'facts', they're form Wikipedia ;) to back up my claim:

Iceland, population 317,593

Compare this to the populations of...

• Scotland: 5,168,500
• Wales: 3,004,600
• Birmingham: 1,016,800
• Sheffield: 534,500
• Liverpool: 434,900
• Croydon: 341,800
• Wakefield: 322,300
• Coventry: 309,800

Icelanders currently employed by English professional football clubs

At the time of writing there are 14 Icelandic players plying their trade in the Engish league.

14 players! That's an entire team, plus 3 substitues! This seems like a disproportionate amount to me - can you imagine any team in the league having enough home-grown players to fill their starting XI? Maybe there are more than 14 professional football players that all hail from Croydon, maybe more from Sheffield or Newcastle - I'm willing to accept that. But you have to bear in mind that English cities benefit from the footballing infrastrucutre in place - places for kids to learn football, coaches to nurture their talent, scouts to spot and recruit them and so on. For me, it's a remarkable achievement for such a small country - maybe there's something in the water.

One wonders quite why the Iceland national side have yet to trouble major tournaments (you'd think that playing aty home would be a distinct advantage).

For the record, there's a few more Icelanders playing in Norway, Sweden and the German top divisions. Other notable Icelanders to play in the English leagues include:

• Gudni Bergsson (Spurs, Bolton)
• Bjarni Gudjonsson (Newcastle, Stoke, Coventty, Plymouth)
• Arnar Gunnlaugsson (Leicester, Stoke, Bolton)
• Bjarki Gunnlaugsson (Preston NE)
• Hannes Sigurðsson (Stoke City)

And, to round this post off in style, some top Icelandic fopotball trivia: when Eiður Guðjohnsen made his international debut in 1996 he came on as a substitute, replacing his father Arnór. This was the first (and so far only) time that father and son had taken part in an international fixture. Iceland beat Estonia 3-0. They would have played together were Eiður not have sustained a severe ankle injury shortly afterwards.