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One of the most impressive of Glenn Hoddle's purchases during his time
as Chelsea manager was Danish international centre-half Jakob Kjeldberg.
Signed from his homeland club Silkeborg in August 1993 for a fee of
£485, 000, Kjeldberg made his debut for The Blues in a 1-1 draw with
Wimbledon at Selhurst Park. Unknown to the vast majority of the Chelsea
following, he immediately impressed, and throughout a first season in
which the club reached the FA Cup final but performed dismally in the
League, he was one of the few consistent performers. Partnered in the
main by either Frank Sinclair or Erland Johnsen, with Hoddle sweeping up
behind, Kjeldberg was a member of the defence which kept early season
clean sheets against Liverpool and Manchester United in 1-0 victories
and by Christmas was established as a cornerstone of the defence,
although he was briefly omitted from the side after a Christmas defeat
at Southampton which saw Chelsea slip into the relegation zone. He
returned in the late stages of extra-time at Hillsborough as The Blues
pulled off an impressive 3-1 FA Cup victory over Sheffield Wednesday,
and missed only two of the remaining 17 matches, featuring in another
1-0 victory over Manchester United as Chelsea clinched a League double
over a United side en-route to a Premier League and FA Cup double of
their own. He scored his only goal of the campaign, a fine header, in a
3-2 win over Sheffield United on the final day of the League season, a
result that led to The Blades being relegated. Kjeldberg played his part
in the run to the FA Cup final, featuring in wins over Oxford and
Wolves before his first trip of the season to Wembley as The Blues beat
Luton 2-0 in the semi-final. However, the big day itself was an
altogether different prospect as, after a good first-half showing,
Chelsea conceded four second-half goals and capitulated to a 4-0 defeat.
His 37 appearances in all competitions that campaign reflected his
importance to the team and he began the following season alongside
Johnsen at the heart of a flat back four. Although their League form was
only marginally better than that of the previous year, Chelsea did
manage to make their mark in the European Cup Winners Cup, having
qualified despite losing at Wembley. Unfortunately for Kjeldberg, the
bizarre FIFA ruling by which the Scottish players in Chelsea's squad
were considered to be foreigners meant that Hoddle had to regularly mix
and match his side and it was Kjeldberg who was the biggest loser. He
appeared in just one of The Blues' eight matches in Europe, a 0-0 draw
at home to Austria Vienna, as Hoddle's youngsters reached the
semi-final. Jakob made 23 appearances in the League, scoring in a 2-2
draw with Coventry in November, but in April he picked up a serious knee
injury in a clash with Aston Villa. The likeable Dane, so highly
thought of within Stamford Bridge, fought gamely to overcome the injury
but early in 1997 was forced to finally quit the game, just missing out
on Ruud Gullit's Chelsea revolution that, with better fortune, he might
so easily have been an integral part of. (Kelvin Barker)
Between 1992 and 1994 Kjelderg played 14 times for Denmark.
In May 1998, he began hosting football matches from the Danish Superliga and UEFA Champions League, for the Danish television channel TV3. In 2002, he became the host in TV3's Danish version of the Survivor-concept reality show: Robinson Ekspeditionen. In August 2007, he became the new host for Onside, a popular football TV magazine.
In 2003, Kjelbjerg hosted the Danish version of Gladiators, Gladiatorerne.
In 2012 and 2013 Kjelbjerg hosted the realityshow Divaer i Junglen (a Danish version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!), where participants from other realityshows participate in the South-American jungle.
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