It was the morning of April 29, 2011 when I met Steinar Bergh.
After spending two weeks traveling parts of Thailand with a friend, I had finally arrived the night before at Suwit Muay Thai gym in Phuket. My friend, Jarrod, had gone back to Australia and I was going on this part of the adventure alone. To say I wasn’t nervous would be a lie. I’d trained in karate and Jujitsu before, but nothing as intense as what was waiting for me at this camp. But this story isn’t about that.
Training sessions ran twice a day at the camp. Morning sessions began at 08:00 and the afternoon sessions were at 16:00, each running for 2+ hours. As I was keen to get into it, I turned up a bit early to wrap my wrists and warm up. Slowly, more and more people came into the training area and went about their routines, skipping, sparring, pad work, bag work, weights, everything. With the sweltering Thai humidity, it quickly became a veritable sweat fest, but the atmosphere was electric. I quickly learned that the gym had people from all corners of the globe training there. I could hear a few other Aussies, some Americans, this insanely fit French dude and a swathe of other accents I struggled to place.
There was a definite hierarchy, those with more experience would warm up and do bag work while the newbies would warm up the coaches with pad work, after a while we would switch and the coaches would work more closely with those training to compete. It was a good system and I tried my best to impress.
It wasn’t until the second hour of training that Steinar turned up. He had been out running and was getting ready to do pad work. He stepped in to the ring and it was immediately evident that was where he belonged. He moved with precision and fluidity and hit with huge power, it was impressive to say the least. There was an air about him that almost made it intimidating to approach and say hello, that was until you actually talk to him. As anyone can tell you, he was friendly and open and welcoming, we hit it off and became friends.
We developed our own family in that place. Spending so much time with like minded people heading toward a similar goal tends to do that, whether that goal was to improve fitness, learn a new skill or to get good enough to compete, it was all the same in the end.
Of that family, Steinar was definitely a leading figure for many of us. Not only was he a top bloke and a great fighter, but he had spent quite a bit of time in Thailand and knew some great places to go hang out, he was also good at keeping us out of trouble if we were willing to listen…
One Saturday night, after a big week of training, a group of us decided to go to a nightclub in Patong. For those of you that don’t know, Thailand is known for having lady boys and drunken tourists are known for not realizing until it’s too late. Steinar, however, had developed an eye for spotting them at a glance and had offered his expertise if someone wasn’t sure if the girl they were making out with wasn’t, in fact, a girl.
“Just come show me and I will either nod yes or shake my head no” He said.
There was an Aussie bloke there, who we’ll call Jim. Jim loved getting so wasted he couldn’t tell which way was up. Later in the night, Jim came up to Steinar with what he thought was a girl.
“I wanna take her home, she alright?” He slurred.
“NO! That’s a boy!” Steinar yelled while waving his hands in the air. Jim couldn’t tell his arse from a hole in the ground at this point.
“Yeah sweet! I’ll seeya tomorrow” Jim grabs the person he thinks is a girl and leaves. We are all laughing, wondering how long it will take him to realize.
Later that night, we’d all made our way back to camp drunk and ready for bed. Jim however, had different plans.
“Steinar you bastard! You told me she was a girl! She has a fucking dick!” Jim is kicking Steinars door. Steinar opens up and a few of us are sticking our heads outside, admiring the scene.
“No, I told you it was a guy, you were just to drunk to listen to me” he laughs. We all back him up. Jim goes bright red and runs back to his room. It was a glorious moment.
(Me as a newby in the red shirt going up against the always smiling Norwegian)
The camp has people coming and going constantly and before I know it, my time to leave rolls around. I make many new friends and stay in touch with a number of them to this day. I stayed in fairly constant contact with Steinar for several years, until…
“Hey Steinar, I’m going to be in Norway for the summer!”
“Foooshoooo!!! Come to Tonsberg! I’ll take the week off and we can hang out!”
After several years of chatting on Facebook and sending Snapchats, I finally got to see my mate again in June 2014.
He had taken the week off work so we could hang out and he could show me his town. I stayed at his apartment with him, his girlfriend Sarah and their new puppy. I met a lot of his friends, we drank, he taught me some Norwegian (mostly swear words) and was the most gracious host. We talked about going back to Thailand and the idea of him coming to visit in Australia. It was a really great week, one of the most enjoyable of my life and afterward I think we were closer than before. He had become a real brother.
I moved to London that November and we had talked about him coming to stay with me in London for my birthday in February.
On January 24, 2015, after watching the UFC in Stockholm, Steinar disappeared.
A massive search took place to find him. There was news coverage throughout Norway and Sweden but there was no sign of him.
On April 7, 2015, his body was found in Stockholm.
We lost a great man that day. He was a son, a partner and a brother. To me, he was a warrior, a friend but most of all, he was someone to look up to.
R.I.P – Steinar Bergh. 1985-2015.