Tervetuloa
01/01/2021
Kalle's year started with sheer optimism and a nervous excitement unparalleled by anything he had experienced in the previous thirty-five-and-a-bit years of his life. Kalle's New Year's Eve celebrations were restricted to a couple of beers with friends and an early night ahead of a life-changing day.
He woke at 7am in his house in Espoo, just a few miles to the west of Helsinki in Finland, and needed no encouragmenet to prepare himself as he began his morning ritual. One bagel, two cups of strong, dark coffee, a poop, a shave, a shower and a teeth-brush completed a well-formed routine as Kalle kept one eye on the gloom outdoors. By the time he had dressed into a dark-grey pair of chinos, a flannel shirt and suede shoes, the sun had still not risen.
Kalle opted against waiting at home until his apointment drew closer, instead donning a long, black coat and locating his keys and wallet. Cold, winter air slapped his face as he exited the front door and there was a crunch of a light dusting of snow as he stood out onto doorstep. He locked up behind him and made the short journey through the dark to his parked car. A click on his blipper was answered by a flash of lights from his car and the sound of the doors unlocking themselves. Kalle reached in through the driver-side door and across to the passenger seat where he picked up a small plastic scraper before using it to clear the night's frost from the windows on the car, and turning it over to use the brush-end to knock the snow off the roof and wipers.
When he sat into his car, Kalle's first action was to turn the heaters on full-blast. After engaging his seat belt, he turned the engine on via a button and set off away from his house. He cruised through a housing estate which showed no sign of life yet and turned through a number of likewise quiet streets before finding Karvasmäki and turning onto the E18 heading east.
Kalle set into a relaxed pace and felt the gentle rumble of his Mercedes E-Class turning through the gears, assisted by an automatic transmission. There was a small flurry of snow blowing through the air and the Merc's wipers went through the motions every few seconds to keep the windscreen clear. The media unit on the dashboard showed the temperature to be below freezing and it wasn't for another few kilometres until the heaters had filled the interior of the car with a warm air.
"Nyt, se on tarkene," Kalle said to himself as he lowered the intensity of warm air being unleashed by the heaters and settled on a temperature setting he was comfortable sitting in.
The kilometres quickly racked up as Kalle made his way clockwise around E18, which acted as a ring road encompassing the city and inner suburbs of Helsinki. The tarmac below him looked a cold, dark grey in the winter and he thanked his studded tyres every time he crossed over an iced patch of the road. He had seen enough road accidents in his life time to know the importance of properly maintaining a vehicle, and he followed that to the letter of the law.
Traffic picked up a little as he passed Helsinki's primary airport at Vantaa. Works vehicles, delivery trucks, lone workers and police cruisers went in either direction as those who didn't revel in last night's festivities, and those who were regretting festooning, started 2021 with necessities of their own.
As Kalle ventured further east on E18, and away from the airport, traffic numbers dimmed down again. Industrial vehicles remained in action, heading to and from Helsinki's easterly port at Vuosaari, but privately-owned vehicles became few and far between. A little before Vuosaari, Kalle turned off the E18 and south towards his own destination. His black Mercedes meandered streets and turns before settling in a car park in front of a cluster of buildings on a road sign-posted as Mustalahdentie (Black Bay Road). Among the buildings was an S-Market (supermarket), R-Kioski (newsagent), a pizza/kebab fast-food place and a cluster of offices that were leased out to several small companies.
Kalle settled into an empty parking space and turned off the car's engine. The clock on his dashboard read 08:51, which meant he had time for another coffee. He stepped out of the car and was greeted by the cold once more befor turning towards the buildings. The sun was beginning to rise and the darkness was turning into a gloomy light. Winter in Finland's capital wouldn't have too many hours of sunlight, and Kalle suspected he wouldn't be able to see too much of it on that day in any case. With a press on his blipper, the car locked up and a miniscule red light flashed to acknowledge the vehicle was alarmed, confirming to Kalle that he could leave and return to a safe environment when his work for the day was done.
There wasn't much for options when it came to a morning coffee in this part of the world. The fast-food place was still closed, with a sign indicating it wouldn't be open until 1 pm, and R-Kioski was closed all day for a public holiday. Kalle strode on into the S-Market, and welcomed the comfort of a warm environment once again. The store's general theme was a bright, hideous yellow and frames for shelves all bared the same colour. Kalle marched on beyond a fruit & vegetable display area and beyond a wall of fridges and freezers before arriving at a self-service coffee machine. Judging by the lack of stains and the emptiness of the drip tray, he figured he was its first user of the day. A minute later, he was walking back out of the store with a half-litre cup of black coffee in one hand and a liqourice bar in the other.
With just over half-an-hour until his appointment in the adjacent offices, Kalle decided to go for a stroll in the nearby vicinity. The block of buildings was set alongside a pond called Kangaslampi, which had a footpath wide enough for a pedestrian and a cyclist to pass each other, and Kalle set off in that direction. The pond was oval-shaped and was maybe 150 metres in length by 100 metres in width. On the north-east side of the pond, where Kalle approached from, was a playground with seesaws, climbing frames and rocking horses all covered in a dusting of snow. Kalle passed the time by walking one full lap around the pond in a long, slow stride, as he filled himself with liqourice and warm coffee.
Once he had completed his lap, he reverted back towards the buildings he had come from. There was one more vehicle parked beside the buildings - a battered, red sedan-style Volvo. The windows were still clear, suggesting the driver had just arrived, and a fresh set of footprints had appeared outside the entrance to the offices. Kalle approached the entrance door and knocked twice before waiting for a response. There were no windows looking into the offices but he heard a shuffle behind the door before it creeped upon and revealed a lean, withered fifty-something year old man with a beaming smile. His white-grey hair was pulled back tightly and he had red, puffy cheeks which gave him a somewhat uncanny resemblence to the actor Jon Voight.
"Kalle!" he beckoned with a booming, welcoming voice. "Tervetuloa, tule sisään!" The man stepped to one side to allow Kalle inside, before closing the door behind him. The door had led into a dimly-lit narrow corridor with opaque-windowed doors left and right. Each door was stenciled with the name of a company, details of that company's practice and a contact number. The man with greying hair led Kalle towards the end of the corridor where a door on the right was left halfway open. The man pushed through and into the room behind it and Kalle read the stenciling on the door as he followed.
The room itself was a two-person office that was perhaps fifteen square metres. Two desks took up the centre space, back-to-back, with monitors, laptops, chairs and under-the-table cabinets equipped. One of the desks was relatively clear, with a landline phone set at right angles and a plethora of stationary sitting in a cup. There had been nobody sitting for a while, judging by how clean it was. Perhaps it was the club's one-and-only administrative staff member, aside from the greying man, and that staff member was on holiday until the new season.
The man sat at the other desk, which was a lot more busy. There were piles of paper lying about and scribbles on post-it notes stuck at every conceivable angle to the edge of the desk. A label reading "Mikael Forsman" was stuck to the side of a monitor, which was connected to a laptop that was humming away. A mug of warm coffee stood on the desk and the man, named Mikael, took a sip from it as he sat down. He gestured to the empty seat at the empty desk for Kalle to sit at, which Kalle obliged.
Kalle glanced around him to see a busy room. There were filing cabinets lining three walls, some floor-to-ceiling and others standing at waist height. Where the cabinets did not reach the ceiling, framed football jerseys hung proudly, all embroidered with the badge of FC Viikingit. The fourth wall had a stall with a kettle, a sink, a drying rack, kitchen towels, mugs, pots of coffee and a bin. A closed door stood adjacent to it, perhaps to a toilet facility.
Mikael sorted through a stack of papers and produced a dossier which had Kalle's full name on it - Kalle Koskinen - and had a number of markers throughout. Kalle was impressed, and a little embarrassed, by the depth of the dossier. He couldn't think of much that could have filled out any sort of report on him, but he was also impressed by the preparation Mikael had put in.
Alongside the dossier came a lined pad of paper and a pen, which twirled in Mikael's hand twice before settling at the top of the page to title it with today's date, time and the reason for the meeting. Mikael underlined Kalle's name twice before looking up and deep into Kalle's eyes, examining the man who sat in front of him. His lips carefully parted, and words were spoken for the first time since he welcomed Kalle into the building.
"So, why would a former Bayern Munich and Finland international want a job here at FC Viikingit?"
Kalle's year started with sheer optimism and a nervous excitement unparalleled by anything he had experienced in the previous thirty-five-and-a-bit years of his life. Kalle's New Year's Eve celebrations were restricted to a couple of beers with friends and an early night ahead of a life-changing day.
He woke at 7am in his house in Espoo, just a few miles to the west of Helsinki in Finland, and needed no encouragmenet to prepare himself as he began his morning ritual. One bagel, two cups of strong, dark coffee, a poop, a shave, a shower and a teeth-brush completed a well-formed routine as Kalle kept one eye on the gloom outdoors. By the time he had dressed into a dark-grey pair of chinos, a flannel shirt and suede shoes, the sun had still not risen.
Kalle opted against waiting at home until his apointment drew closer, instead donning a long, black coat and locating his keys and wallet. Cold, winter air slapped his face as he exited the front door and there was a crunch of a light dusting of snow as he stood out onto doorstep. He locked up behind him and made the short journey through the dark to his parked car. A click on his blipper was answered by a flash of lights from his car and the sound of the doors unlocking themselves. Kalle reached in through the driver-side door and across to the passenger seat where he picked up a small plastic scraper before using it to clear the night's frost from the windows on the car, and turning it over to use the brush-end to knock the snow off the roof and wipers.
When he sat into his car, Kalle's first action was to turn the heaters on full-blast. After engaging his seat belt, he turned the engine on via a button and set off away from his house. He cruised through a housing estate which showed no sign of life yet and turned through a number of likewise quiet streets before finding Karvasmäki and turning onto the E18 heading east.
Kalle set into a relaxed pace and felt the gentle rumble of his Mercedes E-Class turning through the gears, assisted by an automatic transmission. There was a small flurry of snow blowing through the air and the Merc's wipers went through the motions every few seconds to keep the windscreen clear. The media unit on the dashboard showed the temperature to be below freezing and it wasn't for another few kilometres until the heaters had filled the interior of the car with a warm air.
"Nyt, se on tarkene," Kalle said to himself as he lowered the intensity of warm air being unleashed by the heaters and settled on a temperature setting he was comfortable sitting in.
The kilometres quickly racked up as Kalle made his way clockwise around E18, which acted as a ring road encompassing the city and inner suburbs of Helsinki. The tarmac below him looked a cold, dark grey in the winter and he thanked his studded tyres every time he crossed over an iced patch of the road. He had seen enough road accidents in his life time to know the importance of properly maintaining a vehicle, and he followed that to the letter of the law.
Traffic picked up a little as he passed Helsinki's primary airport at Vantaa. Works vehicles, delivery trucks, lone workers and police cruisers went in either direction as those who didn't revel in last night's festivities, and those who were regretting festooning, started 2021 with necessities of their own.
As Kalle ventured further east on E18, and away from the airport, traffic numbers dimmed down again. Industrial vehicles remained in action, heading to and from Helsinki's easterly port at Vuosaari, but privately-owned vehicles became few and far between. A little before Vuosaari, Kalle turned off the E18 and south towards his own destination. His black Mercedes meandered streets and turns before settling in a car park in front of a cluster of buildings on a road sign-posted as Mustalahdentie (Black Bay Road). Among the buildings was an S-Market (supermarket), R-Kioski (newsagent), a pizza/kebab fast-food place and a cluster of offices that were leased out to several small companies.
Kalle settled into an empty parking space and turned off the car's engine. The clock on his dashboard read 08:51, which meant he had time for another coffee. He stepped out of the car and was greeted by the cold once more befor turning towards the buildings. The sun was beginning to rise and the darkness was turning into a gloomy light. Winter in Finland's capital wouldn't have too many hours of sunlight, and Kalle suspected he wouldn't be able to see too much of it on that day in any case. With a press on his blipper, the car locked up and a miniscule red light flashed to acknowledge the vehicle was alarmed, confirming to Kalle that he could leave and return to a safe environment when his work for the day was done.
There wasn't much for options when it came to a morning coffee in this part of the world. The fast-food place was still closed, with a sign indicating it wouldn't be open until 1 pm, and R-Kioski was closed all day for a public holiday. Kalle strode on into the S-Market, and welcomed the comfort of a warm environment once again. The store's general theme was a bright, hideous yellow and frames for shelves all bared the same colour. Kalle marched on beyond a fruit & vegetable display area and beyond a wall of fridges and freezers before arriving at a self-service coffee machine. Judging by the lack of stains and the emptiness of the drip tray, he figured he was its first user of the day. A minute later, he was walking back out of the store with a half-litre cup of black coffee in one hand and a liqourice bar in the other.
With just over half-an-hour until his appointment in the adjacent offices, Kalle decided to go for a stroll in the nearby vicinity. The block of buildings was set alongside a pond called Kangaslampi, which had a footpath wide enough for a pedestrian and a cyclist to pass each other, and Kalle set off in that direction. The pond was oval-shaped and was maybe 150 metres in length by 100 metres in width. On the north-east side of the pond, where Kalle approached from, was a playground with seesaws, climbing frames and rocking horses all covered in a dusting of snow. Kalle passed the time by walking one full lap around the pond in a long, slow stride, as he filled himself with liqourice and warm coffee.
Once he had completed his lap, he reverted back towards the buildings he had come from. There was one more vehicle parked beside the buildings - a battered, red sedan-style Volvo. The windows were still clear, suggesting the driver had just arrived, and a fresh set of footprints had appeared outside the entrance to the offices. Kalle approached the entrance door and knocked twice before waiting for a response. There were no windows looking into the offices but he heard a shuffle behind the door before it creeped upon and revealed a lean, withered fifty-something year old man with a beaming smile. His white-grey hair was pulled back tightly and he had red, puffy cheeks which gave him a somewhat uncanny resemblence to the actor Jon Voight.
"Kalle!" he beckoned with a booming, welcoming voice. "Tervetuloa, tule sisään!" The man stepped to one side to allow Kalle inside, before closing the door behind him. The door had led into a dimly-lit narrow corridor with opaque-windowed doors left and right. Each door was stenciled with the name of a company, details of that company's practice and a contact number. The man with greying hair led Kalle towards the end of the corridor where a door on the right was left halfway open. The man pushed through and into the room behind it and Kalle read the stenciling on the door as he followed.
FC Viikingit
Johtajan Toimisto
(Director's Office)
Johtajan Toimisto
(Director's Office)
The room itself was a two-person office that was perhaps fifteen square metres. Two desks took up the centre space, back-to-back, with monitors, laptops, chairs and under-the-table cabinets equipped. One of the desks was relatively clear, with a landline phone set at right angles and a plethora of stationary sitting in a cup. There had been nobody sitting for a while, judging by how clean it was. Perhaps it was the club's one-and-only administrative staff member, aside from the greying man, and that staff member was on holiday until the new season.
The man sat at the other desk, which was a lot more busy. There were piles of paper lying about and scribbles on post-it notes stuck at every conceivable angle to the edge of the desk. A label reading "Mikael Forsman" was stuck to the side of a monitor, which was connected to a laptop that was humming away. A mug of warm coffee stood on the desk and the man, named Mikael, took a sip from it as he sat down. He gestured to the empty seat at the empty desk for Kalle to sit at, which Kalle obliged.
Kalle glanced around him to see a busy room. There were filing cabinets lining three walls, some floor-to-ceiling and others standing at waist height. Where the cabinets did not reach the ceiling, framed football jerseys hung proudly, all embroidered with the badge of FC Viikingit. The fourth wall had a stall with a kettle, a sink, a drying rack, kitchen towels, mugs, pots of coffee and a bin. A closed door stood adjacent to it, perhaps to a toilet facility.
Mikael sorted through a stack of papers and produced a dossier which had Kalle's full name on it - Kalle Koskinen - and had a number of markers throughout. Kalle was impressed, and a little embarrassed, by the depth of the dossier. He couldn't think of much that could have filled out any sort of report on him, but he was also impressed by the preparation Mikael had put in.
Alongside the dossier came a lined pad of paper and a pen, which twirled in Mikael's hand twice before settling at the top of the page to title it with today's date, time and the reason for the meeting. Mikael underlined Kalle's name twice before looking up and deep into Kalle's eyes, examining the man who sat in front of him. His lips carefully parted, and words were spoken for the first time since he welcomed Kalle into the building.
"So, why would a former Bayern Munich and Finland international want a job here at FC Viikingit?"
FC Viikingit
Vuosaari, Helsinki (Finland)
Ykkönen (2nd tier)
Vuosaaren urheilukenttä
Atlantis FC
FC Espoo
FC Honka Espoo
HJK
PK-35 Vantaa
Trophy Cabinet
Transfers
Results
Upcoming Fixtures
American | 33 y/o (27/12/1987) | GK | 
/ 
Ukranian | 37 y/o (26/11/1983) | GK | 
/ 
/ 
/ 
Brazilian | 34 y.o (04/02/1987) | DC | 
/ 
/ 
Nigerian | 25 y/o (01/11/1985) | MC | 
Congolese | 24 y/o (11/12/1996) | AMC | 
Ykkönen
A great start of course, from you with this one and the results are certainly matching the story so far. The cup run was excellent with a massive win there over HJK. In the league, overperforming and as James said, a push for that promotion spots isn't out of the question just yet. Great stuff!
