Pompey's first Scandinavian

Last week Pompey signed a player from Denmark, Elias Sorensen. Interestingly, our first player from that part of the world was a Swede, Dan Ekner, who played for the first team five times in the 1949-1950 Championship winning season before returning to Sweden, and various long-time fans of Pompey, including some members of the Society, still remember him.

Ron Thew recalls him as ‘a well built bustling type of centre-forward who played at number 9 for 5 games’.

Danny Banting remembers him partly because he had the same first name and partly because he came from Sweden that had been sympathetic to the allied cause so in 1949 Dan was very warmly received.

Rod Ramsey remembered him and sent us his photo. And

Mike Simmonds also watched him play in the reserves. So Pompey had two ‘firsts’; regarding overseas players at that time - the first Jamaican to play in England in Lindy Delapenha and now Dan, the first player from Sweden to play in the Football League. His story is fascinating. His daughter

Dorothea Ramstedt tells us that ‘he came to England and Pompey in the Swedish winter break as he wanted to explore England’. He joined in a number of our training sessions which were successful so the registration as an amateur player was allowed. Dorothea remembers that ‘his passion was travelling and learning languages  and from Pompey he went to Marseille in France then to Italy then to the USA then Spain, Germany, Holland and then back to Sweden and they were all decent clubs like Fiorentina or Athletic Madrid in Spain’.

Dan had played against Portsmouth FC on their summer tour of Sweden in 1948 and he impressed the club - they told him to get in touch if he wanted to come to England - so when he arrived in Portsmouth he asked to play and the club immediately recruited him. He signed amateur forms on November 25 1949 and played for the first team the following day in the 2-2 draw against Sunderland. After another 4 games (2 draws followed by 3 wins) he dropped into the reserves and after playing most games he went back to Sweden on March 22 1949 to play in the World Cup in Brazil - according to the Evening News.

There is no record in Sweden of him playing for the national team previously or from that time. Hardly surprising as although Sweden came third in the World Cup, they played without Dan and a number of others as they ruled that they would only play amateurs - it is thought  that Dan had joined or was about to join Olympique Marseille as a professional.

Dan is also fondly remembered in the history of Liverpool Football Club whilst playing in his second game for Portsmouth. Apparently he was in the changing room after the game - another 2-2 draw - when a telephone call was received upstairs in the Liverpool board room from Sweden! They wanted to speak to Dan so he was fetched up from the dressing room and the packed room full of Liverpool and Portsmouth officials went silent as Dan, in Swedish, gave his home town newspaper his impressions of his second league match in England. The newspaper was voicing the interest of the Gothenburg citizens who all wanted to know how one of their idols had fared against - at that time - top of the table Liverpool.

Dan's career spanned many clubs - 

1945/1946 – Orgrypte (Swe)
1946/1947 – Halmia (Swe)
1947/1949 – IFK Gothenburg (Swe)
1949/1950 – Portsmouth
1950/1951 – Olympique Marseille (Fra)
1951/1953 – Fiorentina (Ita)
1953/1954 – Ferrara (Ita)
1954/1955 – Chicago Vikings (USA)
1955/1956 – Athlético Madrid (Spa)
1956/1958 – Rot Weiss Essen (Ger)
1958/1960 – PSV Eindhoven (Hol)
1960/1962 – Orgrypte (Swe)
1962/1963 – Vatra Frolunda (Swe)