For a former Liverpool full-back, Vegard Heggem’s post-football life could hardly be more different from the usual coaching badge or television studio route. Injuries cut short his career at 28, and instead of staying close to the game, he built a second act around salmon fishing in Norway.
That move is unusual enough on its own. It becomes even more striking when you remember the player he once was: a Liverpool signing from Rosenborg in 1998, a Norway international at the 1998 World Cup, and a defender who was part of a team effort at Anfield that included Roy Evans and Gerard Houllier across his time at the club.
Heggem made 61 appearances for Liverpool and scored two goals, which is not a huge sample but still enough to leave a clear footprint. He scored in a 3-1 win over Middlesbrough in February 1999 and again in a 3-1 win over Bradford City in November 1999. He was also part of a notable moment in November 1998, when he was substituted in the 2-0 win over Blackburn that also featured Steven Gerrard’s Liverpool debut off the bench.
A new career built on an old passion
By the time his injury problems had run their course, Heggem had featured in four more matches before leaving Liverpool and retiring at 28. What came next was not a farewell to football nostalgia, but a deliberate shift into something he had already begun thinking about while still playing.
In 2021, Heggem explained to LFCTV that he had opened a fishing lodge because he loved salmon fishing. He said that once he moved away to play football, he started thinking about what to do when his playing days ended. Fishing, especially salmon fishing, made sense to him, and opening a lodge seemed like a great idea.
He has also described the job in simple terms: he cannot imagine a better one than hosting fishermen from around the world who come to Norway to hunt for Atlantic salmon. That is a long way from the pressures of Liverpool and the Premier League and World Cup, but it also says something about how a career can evolve when circumstances force the issue.
Heggem has been clear that there was not much he could have done differently. He said he was really unlucky with injuries and did his very best to get back playing. He also felt the club did everything it could to get him fit. That is the kind of honesty that gives this story its shape: no bitterness, no false romance, just acceptance.
He could have looked back on the lost matches and the shortened career, but he chose another way to tell the story. Rather than be regretful about what he missed, he preferred to appreciate the games he did play. “I’ve scored in front of the Kop, what more can you really ask for?” is a reminder that even a shortened career can still leave a player with moments that matter.
Aunan Lodge, adorned with Reds memorabilia, now stands as the clearest symbol of that second life. For Heggem, football was the beginning, not the ending. The unusual part is not that he moved on, but that he moved on so completely.
