The Real ‘Farmers’ Leagues’ Handing Out Livestock
In most leagues, a Player of the Match award earns you a handshake, a sponsored trophy or maybe a bottle of champagne. In Norway, it can mean walking off the pitch with four trays of eggs, or in one case, a freshly slaughtered pig.
Across the Norwegian football pyramid, a handful of clubs have embraced unconventional post-match awards. Photos of players holding livestock or produce have gone viral, offering rural twists to the template structure of awards seen in other European leagues.
Earlier this season, Bryne FK goalkeeper Jan de Boer was named Player of the Match after a strong performance against Bodø/Glimt, which included a crucial penalty save. His prize? Four trays of eggs, provided by a local hatchery.
It wasn’t a gimmick. Bryne is located in an agricultural region and the club has long embraced its identity. Fans often chant, “We are farmers and we are proud of it,”.
Bryne FK, Erling Haaland’s boyhood club, took things a step further during last season’s promotion push. Fans were invited to bring their own tractors to the stadium and drive directly into the stadium. For around £18, a driver and up to four passengers could enjoy the match from pitchside. On a sofa held by a tractor’s scooper, three fans watched from the sidelines.
A few weeks later, in Norway’s fourth tier, Varhaug IL decided to respond. Following a 4–0 defeat to Bryne in a local derby, Varhaug awarded their Player of the Match, Sondre Dvergsdal, a 50-pound freshly slaughtered pig.
According to manager Sigrid Lode Knutsen, it was meant as playful one-upmanship. “We came to the conclusion that we had to go harder than the ‘city dwellers’ from Bryne,” Knutsen said. “The real farmers come from Varhaug.” While the remark was clearly tongue-in-cheek, the gesture was a sincere celebration of the club’s rural roots and a chance to stand out in a football landscape increasingly dominated by templated matchday media.
In the Norsk Toppfotball (that represents the Eliteserien and First Division), average match attendance is around 6,900 and sponsorship opportunities are typically limited to shirt fronts and pitchside boards. That’s what makes the post-match award moment a useful platform, a space already built into the media cycle that now serves both sponsor visibility and local identity.
These awards have been picked up by outlets such as the BBC and The Sun and have gone viral on platforms Tiktok and X (formerly Twitter). What started as small-town authenticity has become a viral marketing tool, though it never feels like that’s the point.
At its core, this isn’t about branding. It’s about clubs choosing to reflect the communities they come from, not the leagues they aspire to imitate, even if that means handing out breakfast.
As social media continues to reward originality over gloss, it’s not hard to imagine clubs at other levels such as the Northern Premier League and Welsh tiers picking up the idea. Why settle for a branded piece of plastic when you could hand your keeper a ham while attracting global social media attraction.
Written and Researched by Amelie Claydon
