Catching fire at the icy ‘top’ of European football

For aspiring Australian footballers, a stint in Europe is almost a rite of passage.

With the likes of Tim Cahill, Sam Kerr and Harry Kewell to look up to, a shot at multi-million-dollar contracts and international stardom can be understandably irresistible.

So, when Oliver Kelaart swapped Melbourne for Spain as a teenager intent on a career at the top of the European game, he probably meant it more figuratively than latitudinally.

But in June of 2020, there he found himself, on an eight-hour bus journey from the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik to the tiny north-western village of Blönduós.

Kelaart was signing for Hvöt, a team then competing in the sixth division of Icelandic football.

It may not have been the fairytale transfer he had always dreamt of, but it was the start of a journey that would see him questioned by local police, earn a call-up to the Sri Lankan national team, and link up with an NPL stalwart responsible for one of the most prolific goalscoring seasons you’ve probably never heard of.

Three months before Kelaart’s move to Iceland, European football had all but shut down as the COVID pandemic wreaked havoc in the continent’s south.

For Kelaart, that meant his stint with lower-league Spanish outfit Calamonte had been cut short, and he had traversed a good chunk of the country to lock down with his girlfriend at her family’s farm near Madrid.

Already in his early 20s and yet to “make it” in Europe, Kelaart was set on getting back onto the pitch as quickly as possible.

So, when Hvöt came calling, it may as well have been Real Madrid President Florentino Perez on the other end of the line.

“And it happened quite quickly. Within the space of two or three days, everything was signed.”

Blönduós, a long way from the rest of Iceland

Iceland is beautiful, rugged, desolate and evocative.

But it can feel a long way from the rest of the world.

And as Kelaart quickly learnt, his new home of Blönduós could feel a long way from the rest of Iceland.

Perched on the northern reaches of the island’s west, the village’s 1,000-capacity football ground could comfortably hold its entire population.

Upon his arrival in Blönduós, the club supplied Kelaart with accommodation and a job delivering food and goods to the town’s shops.

“Going into that small town, everyone knows everyone, they embraced this new person coming in,” Kelaart said.

“But being a new person coming into that town … they’d see a new face and be like, you know, ‘Who is this?’

“Because I’m a person of colour as well, it’s kind of like, ‘What is he doing here?'”

It wasn’t long before Kelaart caught the attention of local authorities.

“I think it was my second day at work, and the police actually came in and they had photos of me, my football photos from online, and they were just kind of questioning me and just asking me why I was there,” he said.

On the pitch, however, it quickly became clear why Kelaart was there.

Arriving halfway through the season, he made more than a goal contribution a game as his side fell just short of promotion to the fifth division.

By the end of that first season, COVID restrictions had tightened and Kelaart’s Icelandic future was up in the air.

But the promise of a trial with newly promoted first division outfit Keflavík kept him on the island for the COVID-affected off-season, during which he travelled to the then-tourist-less hotspots and took the photos that years later would accompany this article.

Kelaart’s trial at Keflavík was a success — but only after he endured two of the most arduous weeks of his professional life.

Still living in Blönduós, he would work his delivery job from 6am to midday, then drive four hours and the height of the country to arrive in Keflavík, where he would train before travelling all the way back to northern Iceland.

But it all paid off. Kelaart was offered his first professional contract, and he says making a full-time living from football was an “indescribable feeling”.

“It wasn’t a crazy amount of money,” Kelaart said.

“Probably a little bit less than the normal salary there — not anything insane, but like, just enough to live by and save a little bit.”

With his days as a remote Icelandic delivery man behind him, Kelaart relocated to the island’s southern-most reaches, where he would link up with another Australian in the middle of his own Icelandic rumspringa.

A rare goalscoring season from an NPL stalwart

Unlike Kelaart, Joey Gibbs was already in his footballing prime by the time he arrived in Iceland.

Ten years earlier, he had made his professional debut as a substitute in the A-League grand final. However, he never quite found a home in Australia’s top league. Instead, he built a career as one of the NPL’s most reliable strikers on either side of a brief stint in Hong Kong.

The A-League is one of the few top football divisions in the world that does not feature promotion or relegation. Fans have long called for that to change — and Football Australia’s unveiling of its plan for a National Second Division promises it will soon.

For Gibbs, it was the lack of footballing mobility that meant he jumped at the opportunity to sign with Keflavík in 2020.

“I love the NPL, but after five years in the same league, always playing the same opposition, there is that glass ceiling,” Gibbs said.

As the Black Summer bushfires raged back home in New South Wales, Gibbs arrived in Iceland to a blizzard and only weeks before the COVID pandemic delayed the start of the new season.

But when he eventually got on the pitch, Gibbs was a hit in Iceland, scoring 21 league goals in 19 games as his side pushed its way back to the first division.

He became something of a local celebrity in the 15,000-person, south-eastern fishing town of Keflavík, where most of the foreigners were either footballers or basketballers.

“Really small town vibe where they’ll probably let you know when you’re not doing well … so it was good to have a good first season,” Gibbs said.

“I think it really set me up well to be well-liked in the town and made life easier living in a foreign country, that’s for sure.”

His second year was also a success — 10 league goals and a handful of assists helped Keflavík survive relegation.

Meanwhile, Kelaart, although struggling for game time at Keflavík, was inching closer to an international debut.

A fan-facilitated international call-up

In recent years, the Sri Lankan national team has undergone a footballing revolution, with more than 10 diaspora-based players becoming national team regulars, including Brisbane Roar’s Jack Hingert.

Raised in Melbourne by a Sri Lankan father and a Spanish mother, Kelaart was initially contacted about the possibility of representing Sri Lanka, not by the Football Federation, but by a member of a fan-run Facebook page.

Sri Lankan Genes is a group in which football-mad Sri Lankans scour the globe in search of players who could be eligible to represent the national team, then contact the potential players and facilitate an introduction to Football Federation Sri Lanka.

Kelaart’s transfer to the top division of Icelandic football made him visible to the group, and his common Burgher surname alerted them to his eligibility.

Due to governmental issues and a FIFA ban, Kelaart’s international debut was pushed back to 2024, but since then, he has become one of the first names on the Sri Lankan team sheet.

Traditionally, Sri Lanka’s Golden Army has been one of the true minnows of international football — having not even come close to qualifying for an Asian Cup and boasting a FIFA ranking often in the 200s.

But thanks to a penalty shootout victory over Cambodia last September, the team begins 2025 in the third round of 2026 Asian Cup qualifying — the furthest towards Asia’s premier international tournament it has ever found itself.

Returning to Australia

Kelaart’s national team career has become the main driver in his footballing life, and, in part, is what prompted his move to NPL Victoria side Hume City earlier this year.

His final season in Iceland came with third-division side Hauker. Kelaart says it wasn’t a bad year, but with the lower leagues of Iceland not featuring breaks for international windows, he missed much of the season through national team commitments.

And with the passage from Iceland to Sri Lanka being one of the less trodden international voyages, he would often spend multiple days travelling either side of Sri Lanka games.

“We played a game in Myanmar, and the journey home was like Myanmar to Bangkok, Bangkok to Colombo, Colombo to Doha, Doha to Norway, Norway to Iceland,” Kelaart said.

“Your body is just cooked, and it takes a toll … we’re definitely not flying first class.”

As for Gibbs, his time in Iceland came to an end as the 2023 season drew to a close.

Now a schoolteacher, Gibbs was able to speak to ABC Sport as he drove from work to a Tuesday night training session with NPL club Mount Druitt Town Rangers.

In a career that has spanned almost two decades and has included minutes in an A-League grand final, he still rates the seasons he spent as a Keflavik icon among his most special.

“It ended up being a really great experience and is one of the things I look back on most in my career,” Gibbs said.

“It’s hard to say what’s the thing you cherish the most, but it’s definitely something I’m so happy I did and have so many good memories from that time.”