Chamberlain makes little piece of Icelandic football history

Local football fans might know Nik from his time playing for Eastbourne United back in 2015, a stint in which he scored four goals in eight games under Tobi Hutchinson, including a brace against Loxwood and a late header that started off a thrilling 4-3 comeback against AFC Uckfield on the day of the team’s Christmas party.

Chamberlain has been the manager of Thróttur Reykjavík for four seasons and he was preparing for his first season as a Úrvalsdeild kvenna (Women’s Premier League) coach when we last spoke to him. Thróttur had just sealed the 1. Deild (the second division) Women’s title in emphatic fashion, picking up 15 wins from 18 games, scoring 74 goals and conceding just 13.

Despite this, Chamberlain was under no illusion that his side were in for a tough season 12 months ago, stating his side “will be predicted bottom” and be “relegation favourites” having never survived a season in the Úrvalsdeild kvenna before. “We are going into next year hoping to create history” he said. And create history they did.

Chamberlain’s side finished fifth out of ten teams, the highest position any Thróttur Reykjavík team has achieved in history, in both men’s and women’s football.

“It is an incredible achievement from the players,” said Chamberlain.

“We were the underdog going into every game; we had the youngest, cheapest, and most inexperienced squad in the league and we knew we had to be at our best all the time. Our average age for our starting 11 was 20, which was definitely the youngest in the division.”

His young side had a tough start to the season, picking up just one point from their opening three games.

“It was about what we were predicting before the start of the season” said Chamberlain, “but the pleasing thing was that we were competing and showing a fantastic spirit of never giving up.”

A confidence-boosting four-game unbeaten run followed including victory over rivals FH and draws against in-form Fylkir, Cup holders Selfoss and Cup runners-up KR. The unbeaten streak came to an end at the hands of the formidable Breidablik in late July. “Preparing for Breidablik is hard, very hard. They are by far the best team in the country,” Chamberlain told us.

Breidablik finished top of the table with 42 points from a possible 45 with a plus 63 goal difference.

A string of competitive results followed in the second half of the season as Chamberlain’s underdogs picked up a further three wins, three draws and three losses to round off their overachieving season.

Naturally, Chamberlain’s side had to contend with the impacts of Covid-19: “Covid had quite a big effect,” he recalled, “we stopped training in the middle of March , April consisted of a lot of home workouts for the team and once May came around we could be together in groups but with a 2m distance. The season finally got under way on June 14, almost six weeks behind schedule.

“We played fairly consistently until the start of October when we had a much bigger wave and had to stop all over again.

“We were due to start again in early November, but government restrictions were extended so the KSI [Iceland’s football governing body] decided to call quits on the season.”

With 16 out of 18 games played, Chamberlain’s team picked up 18 points and narrowly claimed a top-half finish on goal difference, achieving what they had set out to do and then some.

Now the stunning achievement will have set high expectations for Thróttur next season,

Chamberlain’s only target is to stay in the division again: “Next year is going to be a lot harder.

“For me, the aim is to survive again with a young squad, get stable in the league, and then we can start to improve upon that.

“We are still learning to walk with the best in the country so we can’t start running just yet.”