EMMET MALONEtalks to the former Republic of Ireland under-21 international who has made a name for himself as a coach in Norway

HE MAY still be little known here at home but Patrick Walker has been generating a fair bit of media interest in Norway since guiding Sandefjord back to the country’s Premier Division (Tippelaegen) at the first attempt last year.

Naturally enough, the local television stations have been delighted with the novelty of having an Irish manager in their midst and better still, he speaks Swedish which they understand even if, he admits, “I sometimes have trouble with Norwegian sometimes because of some of their accents”.

Walker’s own accent is pretty remarkable. Not that it’s especially strong but it is 26 years now since he moved to Gothenburg and yet, from the moment he picks up the phone to you for the first time, it’s pretty clear you’ve got the right man.

Born just short of 50 years ago in Carlow, Walker is a former under-21 Republic of Ireland international who had a few seasons at Gillingham and a spell at Bohemians before a chance meeting in Spain with his future wife, Annette, followed by a visit to Sweden to see her graduate from college, effectively changed his life.

Even on that first occasion in Gothenburg he was struck by how positive people were towards him and contacts made then led to invitations to train with clubs which were, in turn, followed by offers of contracts.

Gillingham, he says, made him a decent offer to stay with them but the Swedish league represented something of a step up in quality while he found the way in which the clubs there were run and the players applied themselves all added to the appeal.

In the years that followed he had spells with BK Hacken and GIF Sundsvall but already had one eye on the coaching career he had long envisaged for himself.

“It was always something I’d wanted to do,” he says. “I’d made a start on my badges at an early stage and I ended up going back to study psychology here with a view to using that for football management. The whole idea of being involved, to see something you’ve worked on, people you’ve worked with grow . . . that was really important to me.”

Walker worked at Kalmar and Orebro and, he says, succeeded in progressing both clubs. His work there also got him noticed by the Swedish FA who also started to avail of his services with the Irishman handed some scouting work and a couple of foreign coaching assignments including one with the Swedish team at the prestigious Toulon tournament, at which he had played for Ireland some 28 years previously. The Swedes ultimately finished as runners up to host side France.

“They wanted me to stay with the national association and work with some of the young players,” he says, but the chance to take over at Sandefjord came up and so he relocated to Norway.

His new home is a town of less than 50,000 people about an hour or so from Oslo and, thanks to the cheap direct flights from nearby, he says, handy enough for Gothenburg and Carlow too.

Things have gone well for him at the club. Relegated the year before last, the owners had maintained investment in the hope of seeing the side bounce straight back but things started badly and that was when Walker was handed the opportunity to take over. It didn’t take him too long to turn things around and the team went on a strong run that ended with them winning promotion and him being hailed as the league’s manager of the year.

Their momentum carried over into this season with good results against the likes of Rosenberg and Brann Bergen contributing to a flying start before some recent setbacks resulted in a slide towards lower mid-table.

Walker, though, is confident that the team will be okay and, having just signed a contract extension, is upbeat about overseeing continued progress at a club where he is clearly happy.

Still, there are things he misses about Gothenburg, not least the day-to-day contact with his two sons, Robert (22) and Kevin (19), both professional players themselves, with Atvidabergs and AIK respectively. Each has been capped at various underage levels by Sweden though, he insists, they have strong links with Ireland too.

As it happens, both have been laid up for spells recently and Kevin is in the process of returning to action following a freak illness which struck while he was on international duty in Belgium and which, his father observes, might actually have killed him. The pair, though, continue to make good progress and Walker’s paternal pride is unmistakable.

As for his own future, he is a little bit coy but it is clear he believes he is still on an upward trajectory too.

“Obviously I want to go as far as I can,” he says, “and I’m going at it bit by bit. I’ve had to work hard to get this far and maybe I’ve suffered a little for being Irish but I’ve done okay and I’m very happy here. It’s a beautiful place with wonderful people. The aim, though, is always to move on to better things.”

“I ended up going back to study psychology here with a view to using that for football management. The whole idea of being involved, to see something you’ve worked on, people you’ve worked with grow . . . that was really important to me