On Sunday (1st November 2020), Robin Olsen became the first Swedish goalkeeper to play a competitive match for Everton. Despite the defeat against Newcastle, his performance was praised and was arguably the Blues’ man of the match. His debut came 70 years after another Swedish goalkeeper played for Everton – Bengt Kjell.
In May 1950, Everton went on a post-season tour of Sweden – their first European tour since WWII and their first ever tour of the country. They played against AIK, Helsingborgs and a combined Gothenburg XI. Just before their first match against AIK, disaster struck. Goalkeeper George Burnett injured himself while warming up. To make matters worse, he was the only goalkeeper Everton took to Sweden. Even though he was reported to be not seriously hurt, the club decided not to take any risks and left him out of the match with right back George Saunders taking his place in goal. Everton ultimately lost 3-1 with Harry Catterick scoring for the Blues and Bertil Backvall and a brace from Gosta Nilsson for the Swedish opposition.
Four days later, they played against Helsingborgs. Unfortunately, George Burnett’s injury turned out to be worse than first feared. He suffered a cartilage issue, which meant he had to miss the rest of the tour. Without a goalkeeper available, it looked like Everton had to play an outfield player in goal in their remaining two matches. However, Everton’s first opponents AIK kindly allowed them to borrow their goalkeeper Bengt Kjell. Kjell made his first appearance for the Blues against Helsingborgs and kept a clean sheet. Everton won 1-0 with Harry Catterick scoring his second goal of the tour. By keeping goal against Helsingborgs, it is likely that Bengt Kjell became the first foreign goalkeeper to play a first-team match for Everton.
Two days later, Everton played their last match of the tour against a combined Gothenburg XI, which comprised of Gothenburg-based teams IFK Gothenburg, Orgryte and GAIS. Bengt Kjell was the goalkeeper for the Blues again in his second and final appearance. Despite losing 1-0 at half-time, Everton turned the game around by winning 3-1 thanks to a hat-trick from Oscar Hold, who came on as a substitute for Peter Farrell. Kjell’s performances in both matches were praised by the Liverpool Evening Express, who said, “his catching and throwing inspired confidence.”
In 2011, Bengt Kjell spoke to an Everton supporters group based in Sweden called Swedish Toffees about his brief spell at Everton for an article about the 1950 tour of Sweden. Everton asked AIK if they could borrow Kjell and AIK allowed him to as he couldn’t play for AIK in any of their remaining Allsvenskan matches. His licence wasn’t ready yet because he had recently joined AIK from Kalmar FF. In fact, the match between Everton and AIK was Kjell’s debut for his new club. He didn’t travel with the team for the Helsingborgs match however he did travel with his temporary teammates for the Gothenburg match.
After his final game for the Blues, he was asked to join Everton as a professional on a permanent basis but he refused because he wanted to play for Sweden and only amateur players were allowed to play for Sweden at the time. As a way of saying thank you for his contribution to the team during the tour, Everton gave Kjell a watch. He said he had no contact with the club since. Despite that, he added he still remembered his time at the club very fondly and he always checked how they were doing.