Kristian Krefting

Kristian Krefting started his football career with IF Viking in Kristiania (now Oslo), but in 1909 transferred to local rivals Lyn, where he played on the inside right or right wing. With Lyn, won the Norwegian cup 1910 and 1911. He won a total of five caps in 1911 and 1912. At the 1912 Olympic Games, Krefting represented Norway in the matches against Denmark and Austria, both of which were lost without scoring a single goal. The match against Austria was his last international match.

Krefting was instrumental in implementing the sport of bandy in Norway. With two other members of the Norwegian Football Association he formed a committee to organize this sport. He represented the Kristiania Hockey Club and joined Trygg after the dissolution of the Hockey Club. Krefting helped Trygg win the Norwegian championship in 1921. One year later he was a co-founder of Lyn’s bandy department and played for Lyn until 1926, when he moved to England. At the 1937 World Championship in Great Britain, he received the Norwegian ice hockey team playing their first ever international match.

In 1948, Krefting acted as Olympic attaché during the 1948 Summer Olympics in London and was appointed Knight of the 1st Class of the Order of St. Olav for his services.

Krefting began to study at the Norwegian Technical University in 1909. Before graduating in 1918 as a chemical engineer he completed an officer’s training in 1914. From 1919-23, he worked as a manager of Jacobsens Paint Factory. He then started a company supplying printing ink to English newspapers in 1924 and eventually settled in England. In 1928, he founded a similar company in Berlin. After the occupation of Norway in 1940, he joined the British Forces as a liaison officer and served in the administration of the exiled Norwegian forces and as a chemical consultant to the Ministry of Defense from 1941 to 1943. He was discharged in the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Kristian Krefting was the son of the prominent Norwegian dermatologist Rudolf Krefting (1860-1942). Kristian married Dagny “Molla” Boe in Paris in 1925. The couple had three children.