Behind The Scenes: The Life Of A Superliga Kitman

A lot of football happens outside of what we see for 90 minutes on the pitch. This is one of a series of ‘Behind The Scenes’ articles where I attempt to uncover some of the lesser known parts of the Danish game.

If you know Lyngby, chances are you’ll know Henrik ‘Lux’ Sørensen, the club’s legendary kitman who embodies their close-knit spirit of togetherness. I talked to him to find out more about his role at the club as they prepare to re-enter the Superliga ahead of the 2022-23 season…

Lux, you’ve been at Lyngby a while now, can you tell me a bit about your time at the club?

I was born and raised in Lyngby - I started playing football here when I was 10 in fact and played until I was 18. Throughout that time I was always a fan too and attended the first-team games. Then in 2004 I started as a kitman for the reserve team and in 2008 I was offered the job as kitman for the first team and of course I happily accepted. It’s my club - well it’s everybody’s club - but it’s mine, and I’ve been the kitman ever since. This Sunday when we open the Superliga season it will be my 500th game.

So it’s fair to say you’ve been through the highs and the lows?

Absolutely. The really low point was 2001, before I started as a kitman, when the club went bankrupt and was sent down to the fourth tier in Denmark. But in only six years we returned to the Superliga. 2000 days…what a crazy journey!

What does your role involve?

I do everything around the team to do with the clothes, the team bus trips for away games, the hotels, there’s a lot to do!

And has that role changed over your time at the club?

It has - there’s much more football laundry now [laughs]! We had a guy who washed all the clothes when we started but he’s not here anymore so it’s all me now, seven days a week when the season is on, but that’s how it is and I like it.

Can you talk me through a typical match day?

A typical home match, if we’re playing at 2 or 3 o’clock, I’ll come in at 7am and do some exercise for half an hour then I start preparing for the match, making both home and away locker rooms ready, preparing the team kit, coffee, water, balls, towels, etc. Then about two hours before the game the players will start coming in. When we play away I normally travel by myself in a car with all the stuff directly to the stadium and make everything ready as if it was a home game, while the players normally travel the day before the game to a hotel.

And do all the visiting teams leave the dressing room in a good condition?

It depends on the result [laughs]! I think generally the other kitman at clubs are good at making up the locker room when they leave, that’s how we do it. If they don’t then it’s ok but only as long as we’ve won the match!

Does moving from the 1st Division to the Superliga change anything for you in terms of kit or equipment budget?

Yes it does. Normally in the 1st Division you only have to have two kits, whereas in Superliga you have to have three. Also being in the Superliga tends to mean you get a new training kit too and the budget is a little higher. This is my fourth time being promoted to the Superliga so I’ve tried it before!

How many shirts does a player get through in a typical season?

It really depends on how many shirts they give away. Some of the players swap shirts or give shirts away after a game but they have to pay for them themselves. They get two home and two away shirts at the start of the season and if they give any away they know they have to pay. I think we had a player who gave away 10 shirts - that’s a lot of money since one shirt is 500DKK so if they keep doing that they’ll pay for themselves! Some of the players go through the whole season with the same four shirts though.

Do you have any input on kit design?

I give them my opinion for sure. I like the history of the club and we’ve had some good seasons where we’ve played in blue shirts with white sleeves so that’s what we’ve gone for this season with the new kit.

Do you have a favourite Lyngby kit?

I have a lot but when we won the bronze medal in 2017 we had a really, really nice kit. An all blue shirt with some chest patterns in a different shade of blue. I’ve got a huge collection of Lyngby shirts, more than 300, and that one is in there.

Say there was a fire and you could only save one shirt from your collection which would it be?

I would save the 1989 kit of our top scorer Flemming Christensen. I would put that in my pocket and just run!

Part of Lux’s incredible shirt collection

What’s the most unusual request you’ve had from a player?

We had a player last year who was here for ten years and he wanted me to remove the collar because he felt it was too tight around his neck so we took away his shirt for him and re-stitched it.

Have you ever misspelt a name on a shirt?

Yes we had a young player who’s still here and when he was new in the team I got his shirt made and it was spelled wrong - I spelled it with a U instead of a V. To be fair, I saw an article with his name where they had spelled it wrong so that was why!

How do you decide which kit to wear in the event of a clash?

I call the kitman from the club we’re about to meet and we talk about the clothes so there’s no clash. If it’s a home game, I also send an email to the referee telling him what kits both us and the opponents will wear so they can decide what to wear so there’s no clash there either.

What does it mean to you personally to have Lyngby back in the Superliga?

It’s nice - everything is bigger and more fun in the Superliga. But to me there’s no difference when it comes to Lyngby, the club is worth as much to me whichever league we play in.

What do you think of Lyngby’s chances of staying up?

It’s going to be hard, no doubt about that, but we have a chance. I think we’re going to be a big surprise for some teams in fact. In 2016, with David Nielsen as manager, we went up and won a bronze medal and that was crazy. Last year Silkeborg went up and won the bronze medal, so there’s always a team coming up and causing a surprise, so I hope we can do that.

For anyone reading this without much knowledge of Danish football, what would you tell them about Lyngby to give them a feel for the club?

I think everybody in Denmark thinks we’re like a cork from a bottle. Every time we are pushed down we pop back up again! That’s how it’s been for all my life, we’ve always found a way to come back. We had problems with the economy some years ago but we have a healthy ownership now, with local guys sponsoring the club. It’s a very familiar club, everyone at the club is very close, the players are like family. I spend a lot of time with them personally, particularly foreign players or players from other areas of the country, going to other football matches or restaurants together. It’s just a really nice club to be part of.

We also are a club that produces not only great players like Yussuf Poulsen (Red Bull Leipzig), Christian Nørgaard (Brentford), Jacob Bruun Larsen (Hoffenheim), Lasse Schöne (Nijmegen), Anders Christiansen (Malmö FF) and Jens Odgaard (AZ Alkmaar), but also great coaches. The first four coaches I worked with in Lyngby were Kasper Hjulmand (now coach of the Danish national team), Thomas Frank (now coach of Brentford), Johan Lange (now Sporting Director of Aston Villa) and Niels Frederiksen (now coach of Brøndby).