Hermann Gunnarsson

Hermann was one of Iceland's top football players in the 1960s and 70s and played with the national football team. He played 14 official matches, scoring 4 goals, 4 matches against amateur sides, scoring 2 goals and 2 games against the Spanish amateur team in an Olympic qualifier, not scoring in those matches. Hermann played with Víkingur R. until he was 10 years old, when he switched to Valur. One summer he scored 62 goals in 15 games for their youth team. Hermann started his senior career in 1963 with Valur, where he played until 1968, when he moved to Austria to play as a professional with SC Eisenstadt, the third Icelander to play as a professional footballer, after Albert Guðmundsson and Þórólfur Beck. He returned home after 6 months, refusing offers from Austria and West Germany. In the 1967–68 European Cup, when Valur reached the last 16 (or less impressively, the 2nd round), he was 5th-7th in the top scorer list, scoring 4 goals, after having jointly-lead with 3 goals after 2 matches with George Best and Paul Van Himst. In 1970, he played with and managed ÍBA (Sport alliance of Akureyri, composed of KA and Þór A.), but returned to Valur before the 1971 season where he spent the remainder of his career, retiring before the 1977 Úrvalsdeild season to become a sports reporter. In total Hermann scored 95 times in the Úrvalsdeild, 81 times with Valur and 14 times with ÍBA. Hermann was top scorer of the Úrvalsdeild three times, in 1967 with Valur (12 goals in a season with…

Hermann also represented the Icelandic national handball team, scoring 45 goals in 15 matches. He claimed in an interview in 1977 to be the (then) world-record holder for goals scored in a national handball game, as he scored 17 goals when Iceland won the United States 41–17 in 1966.