“It all came from, that I almost could not wish for a better life, that everything in my whole life crashed completely together and was quite different than I was used to.”
Marco Ramkilde has been about to give up.
He has wept in impotence in the middle of the training field, has been unemployed, without a job for seven months and even paid for a crucial operation.
And so, he is only 21 years old and have finally hit the big prize with the contract of Queens Park Rangers. As a free choice on all shelves after two and a half years with the studs in football – and personal – raffle.
“The day I was told that I had to be operated for the first time, I also got to know that my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. It came she, thankfully, over. But there were a lot of things right there,” says Marco Ramkilde.
It was the summer of 2017. The teenager Marco Ramkilde were due to start inside the premierekampen against FC Copenhagen, AaB, when he a few days before the match got a kick on the ankle and shortly after came so hard down on the same ankle, it went completely wrong.
The injury would prove to be disastrous.
“There went two and a half years with up and downs. When it is gone its worst, I have had the urge to beat on my ankle. I’ve gone out and thought: ‘What if I can never play football again’. It has been the worst thought. But I always found motivation to think about to score my first goal of the Aalborg Stadium in front of fans.”
The last came he never to. Ankelskaden had not been operated properly the first time, and every time Marco Ramkilde was about to come back, it went wrong again. The same harm. The same ankle.
the Contract with AaB ran to the summer of 2019. And with a good vinteropstart so it translucent. Then the sports director Allan Farms invited to a talk about contract renewals. Two weeks before the talk struck once more. Any scar tissue from the ankle was torn in pieces.
“Two times in the flow I have cried to the training. This was one of them. Not because I was physically hurt, but I knew the just, that we should have the talk about contract renewals. At the time I thought that it went okay. But there were the dreams off,” says Ramkilde.
the Contract was not extended, and Marco Ramkilde was in the summer of 2019 both klubløs and damaged. Suddenly he was not a part of AaB, but instead a part of the unemployment benefit system.
But instead of giving up he took a decision. After consultation with Thomas Jørgensen from ProTreatment, which also addresses part players, selected Ramkilde to allow themselves to operate again in the ankle. To get the right surgery this time.
For about 20,000 crowns from his own pocket he let his ankle operate again and then have to retrain.
“My unemployment benefits which I have received since the summer, when I stopped at AaB, expired in december. So the past two months I have lived of my savings, while I have tried to find a new club,” says Marco Ramkilde.
The club proved to be in London. More precisely, the Championship club Queens Park Rangers with the legendary Les Ferdinand in the lead. But it required several prøvetræninger.
First with the under 23 team before Les Ferdinand invited to førsteholdstræning.
“The training was probably the best, I delivered over here. I could feel on the players and also the coach that they thought that I looked sharp. It was great to get the feeling,” says Marco Ramkilde, who shortly after also played a match against watford town the under 23 team.
“I was told before the match that I had to play 60 minutes. I didn’t know what I should expect, for I did not know 100 percent where I was. I was not been tested in this way. Watford had eight Premier League players in their starting lineup. But when I walked out after 60 minutes, we had 3-0, and I had fortunately been with in the three goals. It could not really have been better.”
Marco Ramkilde had proven to be well above in English. A small overbelastningsskade in response to several days of overanstrengelser in the rush to show off to a halt for two trainings with the first team, as QPR otherwise desired.
But Les Ferdinand had already seen enough. He would like to have the 21-year-old nordjyde.
“Shortly after I was called by my agent, and Les Ferdinand had said, that they would offer me a contract. But they could not defend to give me a Championship contract,” says Marco Ramkilde and says further:
“There was three-four days, from the time I got to know that they would offer me a contract, for the Christian (Schæffer, Ramkildes agent, red.) returned. It turned out that it was worth more than I had dared to hope for. Their plan was that I would first have to be 100 percent ready, and so it applies that I need to work me close to the first team. It was not a difficult decision to take. It was far beyond what I had dared to dream of in many periods in the last two and a half years.”
Marco Ramkilde can not hide his joy that his luck finally turned for him. The north jutland voice, tells with delight of the progress of the phone from London.
A joy and redemption that was just a few days from not at all to be for nothing.
“I think that coronavirussen ended up in lockdown in Denmark the day after I had signed the contract. Four-five days later, it happened in England. If my deal had fallen into place two days later, I had possibly not been allowed to fly to England,” says Marco Ramkilde.
His moving truck was one of the last, there was sent out of the country, and even though he right now is in England under lockdown and a world in coronakrise, there was finally a bit of luck in the syringe at Ramkilde after two years of wear and tear and sometimes dark thoughts.
“It’s still not gone up for me, that I am here. I was just in space, but when I first day closed the door to my apartment and lay me on the bed, went all the air out of me. It was a lot of emotion, which had accumulated over a long time.”
