Riseth, Vidar

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Fullname: Vidar Riseth
Born: 21 April 1971
Birthplace: Frosta, Norway
Signed: 21 Sep 1998
Left: 20 Mar 2001
Squad No.: 30
Position: Midfielder/Utility player
Debut: […]
Internationals: Norway
International Caps 51
International Goals 4

Biog

Norwegian utility player Vidar Riseth was signed by Jozef Venglos in September 1998 for £1.5million from LASK Linz.

He was Jo Venglos’ first signing for Celtic and was put at the left of midfield for his debut, but was soon found versatile enough to be moved around to all sorts of different positions on the park, and on the subs bench as well.

He was really signed to give some options both at the back and right hand side, with his prior mentioned versatility meaning he was played at full back, centre half and defensive midfield.

He played his first games at left midfield and was then asked to play in a number of positions due to injuries elsewhere and never made himself look in the best light because of his adaptability, being unable to settle down in a position and become more experienced in that role.

An elaborate hoax was perpetrated on the Daily Record over Riseth’s signing. The Record had picked up on the possibility of Riseth becoming a Celtic player when he was spotted at Celtic Park and duly printed the story in the paper and in the sister-paper The Sunday Mail on the day of the Rangers-Celtic game on 20 Sep 1998. The other chip-wrappers followed suit. They then attempted to confirm their hunch by contacting LASK Linz and Riseth’s girlfriend. Linz denied any contact and said that he had a further two years on his contract. His girlfriend speaking directly to the Record from Austria said that the only place he might be headed was the local hospital, then persuaded a friend to act as Riseth, saying that he had been in bed for the last three days with ‘flu. He was in fact in a London hotel watching the derby game on TV.

He duly signed on the following night at Celtic Park with the usual photographs and press attendance (and Fergus erring by introducing him as “Vidmar”). The Record, seeing itself seriously out-trumped published a story of wronged indignation on how they had been deliberately lied to. Quite why this should have occurred is anybody’s guess but it might have had something to do with the stream of ant-Celtic articles that The Record had chosen to front since the arrival of Dr Josef Venglos as Head Coach and their “Dud Czech” article. The whole thing turned into a full blown ‘hissy fit’ when the Record published ‘Jock Brown told us to lie’ which brought a £250,000 writ down on them from Jock Brown.

Not an easy time or introduction for the player to make himself a great name as Jo Venglos and then John Barnes struggled for their various reasons. Riseth though was a fair player even amongst the troubles. As a player, his style was quite heady and at full pace which showed his full commitment but sometimes got him into trouble.Once he gifted St. Johnstone a late winner by blasting an attempted clearance straight off the face of an onrushing forward, which then rebounded into the net. Comical when you look back on it.

His greatest achievement was helping to finally put a smile on our faces after a dreary season for Celtic, by scoring in the League Cup Final win over Aberdeen in 2000. A high mark after the managerial dramas under predecessor John Barnes. However, he had his personal lows as well, which included being sent off in the highly strung 3-0 defeat to Rangers in May 1999. There were three sent off that day, and his red card was seen as being a bit stupid, an unnecessary lunge at Ranger’s Claudio Reyna. It just compounded the problems on that bad day.

Nevertheless, despite that low against Rangers he was still a valued part of the squad. As his total of appearances showed, he was mostly used as a squad player and utility man which is a double-edged sword for any player. You’ll get a game whenever someone is out (which is quite usual) but you’ll never make a place your own.

His biggest problem was no-one, not even himself, knew were his best position was. He played RB, LB, CB, CM, RM & LM for Celtic which hindered his development and specialisation. However, he still played in the bulk of the games in his first two seasons, so showed confidence in him that the management was willing to always trying to find him a place in the first team side.

He ended up seeing out both Dr. Jo Venglos and John Barnes but then he found himself getting little first team action in Martin O’Neill’s first season, which saw the writing on the wall for him as surplus to requirements.

He summarised his time well enough himself:

“When I joined the club there were problems with Fergus McCann not spending money. Then Henrik Larsson broke his leg in a terrible incident and we really struggled after that. But [I] will never forget scoring in the League Cup Final at Hampden in 2000 when we beat Aberdeen 2-0. When Martin arrived I could see from the first day he would do well. He is one of the best coaches in the world. Unfortunately [I] was injured when he came in and by the time I’d recovered he didn’t want to change a winning team.”

He went on loan in November 2000 to TSV 1860 Munich, the loan becoming a permanent deal in March 2001 for £1 million and a 3 year contract with the Bundesliga side.

He left them to rejoin Rosenborg in 2002/03 after failing to win a starting place with the Munich side that season. This second spell with the Norwegian champions proved extremely successful establishing himself as a commanding centre half and he was made captain of the side. He became the Norwegian side’s playmaker in the middle of the park and was extremely highly rated by the club. In January 2008 he took an option in his contract and moved on a free transfer to Lillestrom with a contract to end-2008 where he commanded the back line.

His time at Celtic was tumultuous, working under a multitude of managers in his short time, but sadly he didn’t get to share much in the successes under Martin O’Neill. He left giving the Celtic support some good moments, and was a fair but deemed a mostly average player for the first team.

Playing Career

Club	From	To	Fee	League		Scottish/FA Cup		League cup		Other
Rosenborg	01/01/2003		Signed	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	14 (1)	1
1860 Munich	20/03/2001	01/01/2003	£ 975,000	15 (5)	2	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	6 (0)	1
1860 Munich	09/11/2000	19/03/2001	Loan	No appearance data available
Celtic	21/09/1998	20/03/2001	£ 1,500,000	54 (2)	3	4 (0)	0	5 (0)	1	7 (1)	1
ASK Linz	02/08/1996	21/09/1998	Signed	62 (0)	11	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Kongsvinger	01/04/1996	01/08/1996	Loan	14 (0)	5	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Luton	26/10/1995	02/08/1996	£ 110000	6 (5)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	1 (0)	0
Kongsvinger	01/01/1994	26/10/1995	Signed	42 (0)	15	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Rosenborg	01/01/1992	01/01/1994	Trainee	11 (0)	2	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Totals			£2,585,000	204 (12)	38	4 (0)	0	5 (0)	1	28 (2)	3
			goals / game	0.17		0		0.2		0.1
				Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals

Honours with Celtic

Scottish League Cup

• 2000

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