The Kolstad coach received this text message after the cup final loss: “Glad you survived the cancer so you got to see your dung team go down”.
- Kolstad coach Christian Berge received a rough text message after the cup final loss against Runar.
- The message linked the loss to Berge’s previous cancer.
- “Morten” apologized for typos, but not the content.
- Kolstad’s leader Jostein Sivertsen calls the message a violent overstep.
– A violent overstepping. Very rough and personal, says Kolstad’s general manager, Jostein Sivertsen, to VG.
Christan Berge’s men failed to win the third NM title in a row. There was a loss on Sunday after a free throw competition against Runar.
Afterwards, an injury-prone message trickled in on the former national team manager’s mobile phone. The message linked the loss to Berge’s previous cancer.
Berge posted this on Facebook on Sunday evening.
In front of a laughing emoji, Berge gets the message “Glad you survived the cancer so you got to see your dung layer go down”.
“Morten” apologizes for the typo, but not that he has dragged Berge’s previous cancer into the final loss.
“You hit. It hurt,” Berge replies.
VG has been in contact with Berge, who does not wish to comment further on the matter beyond what is written on Facebook.
Christian Berge was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2004. He went through several rounds of tough treatment before he returned to the handball court both as a player and later as a coach.
10 years after the illness, Berge became manager of the Norwegian national team. He is the only one who has taken the men’s national team to medals in championships. He led Norway to two lost WC finals and bronze in the EC.
In 2022, he left his job as national team manager to coach Kolstad in his hometown of Trondheim.
It has so far taken Kolstad to eight titles, but the last time has been tough with a loss in the NM final and a solid defeat for Fjellhammer in the elite series on 20 December.
General manager, Kolstad
– There is a lot of excitement. That is the Jantelawen in practice. We have stuck our heads far ahead. The club and I, as general manager, have acknowledged mistakes. But Christian has not made any mistakes other than that he is a coach and tries to achieve something good for Norwegian handball, says Jostein Sivertsen.
He states that he does not know the identity of “Morten” and has not been able to speak to Berge about the matter.
Kolstad won the play-offs last spring and is also this season Norway’s team in the Champions League. But the decisive play-off final was tough for Berge, who collapsed on the sidelines while the team beat Elverum in Trondheim Spektrum. The heartbeat was racing.
– I have to learn not to jump on new tasks all the time, he told VG a few days after the collapse.
– When it comes to handball, my head is constantly spinning. It never takes a break. I know this, and try to relax with other things. But there is not much else other than fishing trips and bird hunting that gets my mind on something completely different, he continued.
VG asked for an interview with Berge after the NM final on Sunday. But he never appeared in the press zone. The Kolstad coach replied on Sunday evening that he did not want to comment at this time.
