Svein Grøndalen (born 8 February 1955) is a Norwegian former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

. He was born in

Halden Halden (), between 1665 and 1928 known as Fredrikshald, is both a List of cities in Norway, town and a Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Østfold Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The municipality borders Sarpsborg to the northwest, R ...

, and as a youngster, he lived in Halden,

Drammen Drammen () is a city and municipality in Buskerud county, Norway. The port and river city of Drammen is centrally located in the south-eastern and most populated part of Norway. Drammen municipality also includes smaller towns and villages such ...

, Halden again, and

Hunndalen Hunndalen is a commercial and residential area of Gjøvik municipality, Innlandet (formerly Oppland) County. The area is considered to be one of districts of Gjøvik and is approximately three kilometers west of downtown Gjøvik. History Hunnd ...

. He played youth football for Kvik Halden and

Raufoss Raufoss is a town in Vestre Toten Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The town is the administrative centre of the municipality. It is located about south of the larger town of Gjøvik. The town is located along the municipal border wi ...

, and senior football for Raufoss, Rosenborg,

Moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

, and Ås. In total, he got 77 caps for

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

, between 1973 and 1984. Grøndalen played left back or central defender and was noted for his "physical" style of play. Many people remember him best for a brutal tackle that injured Swede

Ralf Edström Ralf Sigvard Edström (born 7 October 1952) is a Swedish former professional footballer who played as a forward. Widely regarded as Sweden's best player in the 1970s, he started off his career with Degerfors IF in the late 1960s and went on ...

during a 1977 international match. He is also remembered for missing a World Cup qualification match due to a bizarre injury, while running in the forest before the game Grøndalen ran into a moose and injured himself so badly he couldn't play the next game. He took education at the

Norwegian Institute of Technology The Norwegian Institute of Technology ( Norwegian: ''Norges tekniske høgskole'', NTH) was a science institute in Trondheim, Norway. It was established in 1910, and existed as an independent technical university for 58 years, after which it was ...

References

Svein Grøndalen
on

Playerhistory.com Playerhistory.com is an internet association football statistics database, founded in April 2002 by former footballer Håkon André Winther (born 15 September 1969 in Tromsø). Maintained by a team of volunteers from all over the world, it is on ...

1955 births Living people Footballers from Halden Footballers from Gjøvik Norwegian men's footballers Norway men's international footballers Raufoss IL players Rosenborg BK players Moss FK players Eliteserien players Norwegian Institute of Technology alumni Men's association football defenders 20th-century Norwegian sportsmen {{Norway-footy-defender-stub