Erik Bo Andersen

Name: Erik Bo Andersen

DOB: 14/11/70

POB: Dronningborg,
Denmark

Position: Striker

Clubs: AaB, Rangers, OB, Duisburg, Vejle, Odd Grenland

International Caps: Six

18 goals in 34 appearances is a great return. Being a part
of a League Championship and Scottish Cup winning side is good, and scoring a
double to win an Old Firm derby is even better. But it doesn’t matter. Not when
one of your teammates deliberately pisses on you in the shower and the national
media ends up hearing about it. That is what people will remember you by. That and
the fact everyone called you “Bambi”.

Perhaps one of the most underappreciated strikers in the
last 20 years at Rangers, Andersen always seemed to do a job when called upon
and certainly knew how to find the back of the net. There have been some
seasons, the obviousness of the current campaign aside, when the Ibrox
supporters would have happily welcomed back the awkward looking but effective
Dane. The height in his 6ft 2inn frame was accentuated by his stork-like build.
His pace wasn’t so much the problem – once he built up a head of steam he’d fly
like the feathered creatures he resembled – it was the inability to give as
good as he got when battling with opposing centre halves, which he was expected
to do because of his length.

What he did possess was sharp technical ability homed in his
days at AaB. The Danish club had snapped up him from a local amateur side and
envisioned the raw striker as a project they could develop in their reserve
team. It would be over a year after signing that he was able to insert himself
into the consciousness of the AaB supporters with a brace in a Danish cup
match. The following season he would be fully established in the team’s
starting XI, regularly scoring goals and earning the nickname Red Romario – a
moniker he is in no way cool enough to pull off.

His time in Aalborg was an
undoubted success. Andersen scored 50 goals in under a hundred games and helped
the club to their first Superliga championship. 1995 would also be year he won
his first caps for the Danish national side, receiving six appearances over a
two year span.

With his form reliable as ever in front of goal, Rangers
came-a-calling with a £1.2million offer to take him to the Scottish Premier
Division, which he accepted in February 1996. After the initial bedding in
period he netted six goals in Rangers final seven league games, including a
hat-trick over Partick Thistle at Ibrox.

The next campaign promised great things for Andersen that
never fully came to fruition. He had to wait until October 22nd to get his
first goal of the campaign – flicking in a Laudrup shot before capitalising on
his restored confidence to ram a second high into the net shortly after – and
his first league goal wouldn’t come until December 14th. From there he went on
something of a purple patch. The hat-trick he netted against Kilmarnock
two days later was a mere prelude to the best game he would have in a Rangers
shirt. In truth he’d probably played better games but would have scored no more
important goals in the eyes of his supporters than the double he netted against
Celtic after coming on as sub in the New Years’ derby. This was followed by
three goals in the next two games and the opener on January 25th against St
Johnstone in the cup, taking his total to ten goals in 32 days. He promptly
didn’t score again for the rest of the campaign.

Clearly his teammates were not overly enamoured with his
lack of prowess after such a hot streak. Some people have different ways of
making such frustrations clear. Some may scream; others may have a quiet word.
Paul Gascoigne prefers pissing on people. Yes, for anyone who doesn’t know,
during pre-season training for the 1997/98 season “Gazza” decided it’d be a
laugh to piss on his Danish teammate while both of them were in the showers
along with a few of their colleagues. Lorenzo Amoruso, having joined recently
from Italy, was witnessing this British brand of sophistication for the first
time and later recalled how he couldn’t believe Andersen choose to halt said
pissing not be smacking Gazza in the face, but by calming and respectfully
asking him to stop urinating on his leg.

Unsurprisingly he was out the door at Ibrox shortly after.
The signing of Marco Negri pushed our hero further down the pecking order and
with the Italian striker in unstoppable form a return to first team appeared
improbable, encouraging Andersen to accept Odense offer to take him back to
Denmark. Six goals in 16 league games was not a bad return but it wasn’t enough
to stop the club avoiding relegation at the end of the season.

The familiar tailspin in form and career progression soon
occurred with injury the catalyst. The 1998 move to Duisburg saw him miss pre-season and the
first couple of months after hurting himself during the summer. It was the
first major injury of his career, and at the age of 28 a set-back he was unable
to recover from. Unable to play consistently in the Bundesliga a loan deal with
Vejle was reached for the latter half of the 1999/2000 season before a
permanent deal to return to Denmark was reached with Odd Grenland.

Three months into his new career he suffered a knee injury.
Grenland did not have the resources to effectively rehab Andersen back to
health after he suffered complications following the initial surgery.
Graciously, AaB offered their former hero a chance to use their medical staff
and the relationship was soon cemented when Andersen joined the club once his
recovery was complete. Unfortunately he’d suffer another knee injury and
decided enough was enough. He was 32 when he called it quits and had played
just over 80 league games in his final six seasons.

Where is he now? Two years after his enforced retirement
Andersen stood as a candidate in the Danish municipality elections and was
voted into the Randers
council.

Show: Goodbye Simon