The most underrated line of this is right before the final whistle is blown. "The referee is adding and adding on. He is close to receiving English citizenship."
I live in Northern Norway and I was serving my duty as an soldier in southern Norway and I was at Ullevaal that memroble night back in 1981. I heard this commentary later. Tommy Lund was great in this match. What a legend and a giftet footballer.
He rambled off all those british references unplanned... because he loved england... In Norway at the time... only English football mattered.... there was one TV channel...it showed Norwegian football + the english football league...that's it. He was the generation that came of age during ww2.
@@postpaal I went to Norway in 2012 and 13. They still love English Football. I’m English and got drinks bought for me by all these Norwegian Liverpool fans cos I mentioned I am friends with Gerrard’s cousin , I’m a spurs fan… but they were basically treating me like I was Gerrard. Also 4:30pm on saturdsy, local news in Bergen comes on, before anything else is mentioned they start showing football highlights, a Spurs goal I didn’t recognise… then realised it was the goal from the game I was reading about… the game that was 30 mins in in England , and they are showing the goals.. I was just like “ is this normal!” In England we have to wait til MOTD or did back then, RU-vid highlights are usually quicker these days. But imagine seeing premier league highlights on your local news broadcast whilst the games are still being played… or I mean it’s like then showing Barcelona games. Madness. Beautiful country, best on the planet imo, would do anything for a Norwegian lady to fall in love with me; just so I could move there and watch football highlights..
I was 13 yrs old Norwegian and I will never forget this match. We beat England in football. It was unbelievle. And my favorit team has allways been Liverpool, and here was Ray Clemence, Phil Neil, Terry Mcdermott, Kevin Keegan, Phil Thomson. It was fantastic.
Love the passion of the Norwegian commentator Bjorge Lillelien. His passion for his Country is how anyone should feel for their country on such a momentous occasion. He was full of pride and excitement. Without seeing his face I can imagine tears of joy rolling down his cheeks. This is the reason football is the beautiful game and why we love it. On that day I was a young man in England unhappy with the result. 40 years later I listen to this commentary and feel so pleased and emotional for Norway. Well done.
I completely agree, yet it seems our commentators aren’t allowed to do it in case some twat gets offended.......what a silly society we live in. No doubt we would also be accused of racism by a random leftie white dickweed... Well done Norway though...
As much as he loved Norway I think it's sad that he died way too young in 1989 and never got the chance to experience Norway in a big tournament. And that happened in 94, 98 and 2000.
@@kvassrockBjørge died of cancer in october 1987. He commentated his last match when Norway beat France 2-0 at Ullevaal during the summer of that year. A great loss to the Norwegian broadcasting, NRK.
To the people missing the point of the greatness of this video apart from the commentator's enthusiasm: The Point is the joy of the commentator and the "homage" to Britain...it was unplanned but shows how natural he rambles off a bunch of British references... He grew up under WW2...for that generation the UK was the "only" country that mattered...also when it came to football... Norway has always felt close to UK, specially the war generation.
@@user-zj5rm4qc2kengland / britain …to norwegians…. it’s basically the same thing…. although we are quite aware about scotland, wales, northern ireland… we call england for england… and great britain for england…and GB for GB..
Haha something brought this to my mind and I'm glad I watched this version to see a line I didn't know and has had me chuckling for some time _"the referee is adding on and adding on, he is close to receiving English citizenship"!_ LOL
Rest in peace, Bjørge Lillelien. You don't get moments like this in sport now, it's all safe, sedate and politically correct. Passion is the essence of commentating, accuracy can come afterwards! Rest in peace, Bjørge Lillelien, you lived a helluva life!
What makes it even better is they were 2 poxy goals they scored. Then going on about the ref being close to receiving English citizenship for not blowing the whistle fast enough.
I was at that game stayed in Oslo for a week,ferry from Newcastle then the train from Bergan to Oslo. Great country great people. We took one Hell of a beating 😂
It was SURREAL we did beat England in football. Absolutely surreal. On top of that Lillelien's rant. We were crying in pure joy and happiness rofl at Lillelien's rant. He was fantastic in general as a commentator. He did comment for radio. When radio and tv did broadcast the same sports event like this. We watched tv and listened to Lillelien on radio. We could clearly see what was near post in Lillelien's book almost ended in corner. And we loved it
I think hidden in the commentary at the end is a lot of respect with which England were held back then as the birthplace of the game and love the Norwegians had for our football. We didn't have a particularly good team in those days but it is obvious that to beat the team that gave the game to the world meant everything to Lillelien.
I remember watching this game on tv, but I don't know when I first heard this commentary. I used to work with a Norwegian woman and she told me this result was huge for Norway. At the time the Norwegian football league was semi-professional and many Norwegians also followed clubs in the English and Scottish leagues. English football supporters love this commentary; Lillelien was citing people you wouldn't expect any foreigner to know much about: Attlee, Lord Beaverbrook (actually a Canadian) and Anthony Eden. Great stuff!
Yes agree with that, although I wouldn't say hidden! At this time Norway were considered "minows", while England were World Champions "just" 15 years before. As exciting as a lower league team beating a giant in the FA cup.
Lol first time hearing that in full, no didn't quite knock England out as we went to the Spain world cup year later in 82... Actually needed similar commentary 12 years later in 93 when Norway victory actually did help towards England failure to qualify for USA 94
Thanks for uploading this Roger. This is THE all time classic football commentary! Nice to see the legendary footage in full. Other uploads in UK are massacred by the BBC talking head idiots.
My favourite commentary ever! How did he get from Clement Atlee to Henry Cooper!? Notice the seamless transition from Norwegian to English (Is there anyone in Scandinavia who can't?). How many of our commentators could do the same then and now? (I couldn't either to be fair!).
I was wondering that - whether his audience would've understood the English back in 1981. I mean today I guess many would understood it (certainly be able to read it), but in 1981 was Norway's English skills as advanced as today?
Can't believe he listed all those names of the top of his head. He must have had them written down somewhere its as if he knew Norway were winning that day😁
I was one year old when this happened, but I did this once after winning a very hard game of pool in 2001, I think. We were playing for a months salary and we were playing three wins in a row to win, which took fifteen hours or something like that. I absolutely hated the man I was playing against, which is why we did it. The only thing that came to me was «Maggie Tatcher, can you hear me!» People always asked me to do it again, but you can't do that.
Norway have beaten them twice. In 1993 2:0 with some help from an English man Charles Reep. An excellent article about him ( on BBC) brought me he , hence catching up with Norway's legendary performances.
Cundy does this to the bigger clubs when they lose. Some of them are hilarious the Forest one this week was superb after their cup loss. The spurs one are the best ....(Emerson Royal with Cheese) gets me every time.
I dont know. When England won against Germany today there was definitely lots of emotions in play. Not sure how it was described by commentators in England though.
After this result it looked very likely that Romania would qualify ahead of England, but the Romanians screwed up, losing at home to Switzerland, who had previously lost at home to Norway.
Well, he was getting a bit carried away! England were lucky to qualify and actually did well in Spain. There was a round robin stage following the group stage and England drew both games, with Spain and West Germany. West Germany nearly went out in the group stage; their draw with Austria which was obviously played in a manner to ensure both sides went through eliminated Algeria who'd beaten the Germans 2-1. West Germany lost to Italy in the final.
Lady Diana and Maggie Thatcher were good upfront and Lord Nelson provided solid defence but Lord Beaverbrook lacked creativity and Ron Greenwood should’ve substituted him in the first half..
Bassett Time ... the early Eighties when England's footballing fortunes turned from tragicomedy to pure farce. A hundred years of luck got pawned in getting out of that group.
@@HandleGFEngland deserve draw ref let the norways players kick all the forwards players...BUT at the end we go through and NORWAY GO TO FUCK OFF! YNWA
La Norvège avait une équipe formidable en 1994,helas il manquait un peu de techniciens,de folies...lars bohinen rekdal c est un français qui le dit.bien à vous.👍✌️ TV ex
Jon Cole yes I remember. Why did not Norway play in Spain? I also remember Schumacher, the german goal keeper knocking out, and nearly killing a french player. He should have been given the chair! I just know that he is THE most hated german, AFTER Hitler!
@@torgeirbrandsnes1916 In that group everybody beat each other, unfortunately Norway didn't quite do enough to qualify. This was their first ever win over England (might even have been their first goals against them!). As for Schumacher, yes he should have been sent-off versus France. To make matters worse, the referee even let him move early to save two penalties in the shoot-out!
This is in my top three favourite commentator moments, the other two being Hugo Morales when Maradona scored, also against England, and Tomasz Zimoch when Widzew knocked Broendby out of CL in 1996. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cZ6BsTRFt60.html
It's hilarious and I remember it from the time. But this was a poor England team with players like Paul Mariner, Viv Anderson and Dave Watson in the side. Norway should have won by more.
That England team was one of the luckiest ever to qualify for a World Cup. They lost and drew with Romania (who only won one other game in the group, against Norway), lost to Norway, lost to Switzerland, and had the luxury of playing a Hungarian team who had already qualified in their final match.
@@geoffpoole483 Because the 1981 Norway team was a talented team. Players in Man C, Nott. F., Bundesliga, Dutch and French League. Ajax wanted Tommy Lund to replace Cruijff after his departure to Barcelona. Lund rejected and played his whole career in Lillestrøm SK. Still till this day reckon as one of Norway's finest players. Hallvar Thoresen became captain for PSV. Winner of 1988 UEFA Cup. In PSV Gullit and Koeman. However Thoresen was in his last season and were injured in 1988. He retired summer 1988. Most scoring foreigner in Dutch league at the time. 12th in 2023. Qualified for the 1980 Olympics but boycoted. Reckon as the world's best national amateur team at that time. English clubs won 7 UEFA Cups between 1977 and 1984.
Indeed, but at the time everyone including the English thought they were out. They were dependeing on unlikely results here and there to have any chance, and Switzerland is the team considered to have given the England lifeline by beating Romania away.
I dunno, not getting past the second round wasn't exactly lighting the tournament on fire. But can you imagine the national disaster, if they had missed on a 3rd World Cup in a row, having missed 74 and 78?
@@ewaf88 Well you didn't do so well in 92/93 , lost to Norway again and this time knocked out of the WC. Norway won their group ahead of Holland and England.
@@Parislaugh Sant sant! Husker akkurat hvor jeg var da Norge slo Brasil i '98, tross at jeg bare var seks år og to uker gammal...var på en bar i Spania og så på. Spanjolene som var tilstede visste at vi var nordmenn og tok vårt parti.
I used to work with a Norwegian and she told me this result was massive in Norway (as you may have guessed from the commentary). Norwegian football was part-time and most people followed English football clubs. To get drawn against England in a qualifier and to beat them was the stuff that dreams are made of.
@@geoffpoole483 The love for english football was so big in Norway that the media wanted Norway to lose so England could qualify. At least there was a debate at the time.
"we are the best in the world, we have beaten England" Ummm hate to break it to you pal, but That ain't no Brazil, Italy, France or Germany. LOL. Hell, Uruguay has won more World Cups than England, and I assure you Norway, you couldn't take them either.
@@andrewjoyce9038 In addition Lillelien was commenting sports events for radio. His philosophy were "make it entertaining no matter how boring." Norwegians used to pimp tv sports broadcast listening to radio while watching the tv. That is exactly what you see in the video. The audio is from radio. We laughed so hard of Lillelien's commenting. We could clearly see him exaggerate. But he was fun. He was entertaining. Lots of passion. I remember I was a kid and beating England was the unthinkable. We did admire English football broadcasting since 1969. Tears of joy and pissing our pants laughing of Lillelien's rant. Lillelien's best. The myth says that Ajax wanted Tom Lund (1-1) to replace Cruyff after his departure to Barca. Bayern Munchen and several others EUR clubs wanted to sign Lund but he stayed in his beloved club in Norway his whole career. Lund is one of Norway's absolute finest ballers ever. There were some quality in this team. Halvard Thorsen (2-1) and Roger Albertsen (taking credit for Lund's goal pointing his shoe but later admitted it was Lund's goal) played in Eresdivie. Thorsen had great success in Eresdivie.
