Jan Åge Fjørtoft

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Jan Åge "Fjøra" Fjørtoft (born January 10, 1967) is a former Norwegian footballer. A striker who scored many goals, he played professionally in Norway, Austria, England and Germany. He played 71 international matches and scored 20 goals for Norway.

Fjørtoft spent several seasons in England during the 1990's. He joined Swindon Town in the summer of 1993 following their promotion to the Premiership. He was their top scorer during the 1993-94 season, but the team was relegated despite this. Fjørtoft continued to score frequently during 1994-95 and helped Swindon reach the League Cup semi finals, but their league form was disastrous once more and he transferred to Middlesbrough on transfer deadline day. His departure did nothing to help Swindon's league form and they were again relegated in the penultimate game of the season.

Meanwhile, Fjørtoft was a regular player for Middlesbrough as soon as he joined the club, and helped them finish the season as Division One champions. Due to a restructuring of the league, they were the only team to gain automatic promotion to the Premiership in 1995. He was a regular player throughout the 1995-96 campaign, and partnering the Brazilian Juninho they finished in a respectable 12th place. But the arrival of Italian striker Fabrizio Ravanelli pushing him down the pecking order for the 1996-97 season, and he was sold to Division One side Sheffield United soon afterwards. After the Blades lost to Crystal Palace in that season's playoff final, he joined newly promoted Barnsley to have another crack at the Premiership. But he was unable to prevent Barnsley's first - and only to date - season at this level ending in relegation and at the end of the 1997-98 season he left the club.

Fjørtoft's next stop came in Germany with Eintracht Frankfurt, where he spent three years before returning home to Norway with Stabæk and winding up with Lillestrøm in 2002 before retiring at the age of 35.

After his retirement he worked as a football commentator for NRK, but resigned when he took over the managerial position at Lillestrøm. Currently he also works for another television channel, TV3. In a recent interview, Jan named Gary Naysmith as the player he most admires.

[edit] Playing career

Preceded by:
Jan Kristian Fjærestad		 Norwegian top scorer
1988		 Succeeded by:
Jahn Ivar Jakobsen
Norway Norway squad - 1994 World Cup Norway

1 Thorstvedt | 2 Halle | 3 Johnsen | 4 Bratseth | 5 Bjørnebye | 6 Flo | 7 Mykland | 8 Leonhardsen | 9 Fjørtoft | 10 Rekdal | 11 Jakobsen | 12 Grodås | 13 Rise | 14 Nilsen | 15 Løken | 16 Sørloth | 17 Eggen | 18 Haaland | 19 Strand | 20 Berg | 21 Rushfeldt | 22 Bohinen | Coach: Olsen
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