Manchester United star Henning Berg tells FourFourTwo all about the ‘crazy’ chain of events that led to Kenny Dalglish discovering him for Blackburn Rovers
(Image credit: Ross Kinnaird/Allsport)
Former Norway international Henning Berg has recalled the “crazy” story which led him to being signed by then Blackburn Rovers manager Kenny Dalglish, sparking a decade-long association with English football.
Berg would go on to win three Premier League titles with Rovers and then Manchester United after he was signed by Sir Alex Ferguson, but it was in 1993 when he first got picked up as Dalglish, and it’s not your ordinary scouting story, as he recalled to FourFourTwo.
“This is a crazy story,” he said. “I’d just gotten into the Norway team, so I was on the bench. Our centre-back, Tore Pedersen, got an elbow to the head from Ian Wright. Our doctor ran on and asked Tore what the score was. Because England had been dominating, the doctor thought England were leading 1-0.
Henning Berg went onto have a successful career at Blackburn before making a move to Old Trafford (Image credit: Ross Kinnaird/ALLSPORT)
“But the score was actually 0-0. Tore said it was 0-0, so the doctor thought he had concussion and made him go off. I came on and Dalglish saw me playing. A month later, I was invited to train with Blackburn and they offered me a contract. It was pretty good for me that the doctor didn’t know much about football.”
Berg joined Blackburn in January 1993 and two years later would be a vital part of the team which won their first and only Premier League title, with the Norwegian missing just two games all season.
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Across the next few years, his performances and versatility as both a centre-back and right-back led Man United and Ferguson to pay £5m for his services, a record at that time for a defender from a British club.
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Berg would be a regular across three seasons, being part of the historic treble-winning team in 1999, before he returned to Blackburn in 2000, and would have a brief unsuccessful spell as the club’s manager in 2012.
Rich Laverty has been a women’s football writer for a decade now, covering the game across the FA WSL, several FA Cup finals and live from the 2017 European Championships and 2019 World Cup. He has written regularly for publications in the UK and USA, including The Times, Guardian, Independent, iSport, FourFourTwo, Bleacher Report, The Blizzard, These Football Times and Our Game Magazine.
