Badminton & Danish Culture: A Simple Invitation

Back in Mulhouse.

The city where my French adventure began in the fall of 1997. This is where I seriously entered a world I had not imagined would come to characterize my life so deeply.

As an active player in Red Star Mulhouse, the formal commitment lasted until around 2010, but the friendship with the club’s then president – Christophe – has survived the time. It has evolved into something more than just a memory of the year of youth. It has become an anchor. A deep connection.

At that time I took my then girlfriend, who was to study a semester until Christmas 1997 at the local university and start his thesis in French grammar. I joined as a companion – not with any special plan, other than being present for her.

We arrived by bus, four big suitcases and no clear idea of ​​where to live. We walked on the streets the same day and found – a little miraculously – a furnished apartment in the middle of the city within a day.

After a little week, I applied for the local sports complex in the hope of finding someone to play badminton with. It should turn out to be the start of something far greater than I had imagined. The tournaments soon filled almost every single weekend, and with them came friendships, connections, and a new understanding of the French culture – seen through the sport’s special prism.

In the summer of 1998, we made the decision to return to Mulhouse to build a life. But life would be different. An unplanned pregnancy and the need for security sent us back to Denmark – first my pregnant partner in January, and since myself in March 1999.

But the connection was created. For the next ten years I played team matches for Red Star Mulhouse. I traveled to France several times every season-from Roubaix in the north to Aix-en-Provence in the south. And when the kids came to, I often brought them along, first the daughter, the firstborn, and then the son of 2001, so that my cohabitant should not stand alone at home while I lived on in what still felt like another home – in the midst of French culture and the sport that had given me so much.

Now I’m here again – on a short weekend visit in the home I first entered back in the fall of 1997. There’s something sad about it. Not everything is as it was – but something is still alive. The heat. The memories. The friendship.

Christophe has meanwhile lived several lives – among other things. Some years on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, where I also visited him twice, in 2015 and 2017 – with each of my two sons. Even there I played badminton, in the tropical heat.

Mulhouse has also been visited by young Danish players from Team Storstrøm, a training community I was in charge of between 2016 and 2022. Against Arnaud Merkle-a young player who already visited Denmark in the 00s several times with others from the Mulhouse area, in Kolding, Copenhagen and Vordingborg, at training camps such as Christophe and I arranged.

All this began with a journey without a goal. A decision to simply be followed by one you loved. And yet: It was a beginning of something that has spent decades.

So my message to you who are at the beginning of something, maybe without knowing it: Go out into the world. Meet people through what you love – through the sport, the culture, the conversations. As a Dane you have something with you that opens doors. Show who you are. Be open.

Maybe you will be hanging. Maybe you get friends for life. Maybe you lose something along the way. But one thing is for sure: You will come home with experiences you will never forget.

Link to previous posts about France

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