Åsanehallen

The ground sits on a level patch of land in the Åsane district. It is a newer addition to the city, opened in 2021. The structure is a complex of halls and rinks.

The pitch is surrounded by modest stands, though a crowd of three thousand five hundred and seven once pressed against the rails for a match against SK Brann. That day, the weather was dry, and the players did not slip. The floodlights are LED, sharp and white, cutting through the northern gloom, but they do not change the fact that the sun sets early here. The wind comes off the water and the hills, straight through the open end of the stadium, and in winter it finds its way into the players’ lungs.

Inside, the climbing wall, known as Vestveggen, stands as a separate curiosity, a vertical challenge that shares the roof with the handball courts. The café on the second floor offers a view of the valley and the distant mountains, a reminder that Bergen is a city of water and stone. The old hall nearby, opened in 1988, still stands as a Fysak, a youth centre, before it is finally demolished. The new ground does not compete with it; it simply exists in a different time. The surface is artificial, the lines are painted white, and the grass grows green underneath the plastic. It is not a temple of football, but it is where the team plays when the weather allows.