Jorgen Sandman

Jorgen Sandman was born on the 18th of August 1955 in Sundsvall (SWE). Growing up in a city and a country where sports plays a central role, and with a father that used to be an Ice-Hockey player, it was not all that much of a surprise when Jorgen soon became involved in sports himself. Having learnt to skate almost before he learnt to walk, he started to play Ice-Hockey with the local team, HOIF, at the age of 7. Over years HOIF was at the very top of the second league in Sweden, with an occasional visit in the highest league. At the age of 16 he started to act as a coach for the younger kids in the club, an experience that was going to come in handy later on.

Already an established player in the highest society for juniors, Jorgen then nominated for the A-team at the age of 18 – his dream was about to become true. However, already at the first training session on ice an upset with the coach instead abruptly changed all that. All of a sudden his career as a hockey-player was over, and also the circumstance that his coach was fired just a few months later did not alter that.

Meanwhile he had been active in a large number of other sports such as Bandy, Baseball, Billiards, Football, Handball, Mini-Golf, Speed-Skating, Table-Tennis, Volleyball and Wrestling, and when he suddenly got a large amount of time on his hands, he got involved in Volleyball big time. Together with some school-mates he started a Volleball club – Ultra 73. Soon he found himself involved as a player on the team, the coach for the women’s team, a referee, the chairman of the club, a member of the regional federation as well as a respresentative of his club to the Swedish Volleyball Federation.

It was during this time that he learnt a lot about how a club is built up and how sports in general is administered – knowledge that was going to form his future, however again in another sport. In 1973 he was asked if he would be prepared to work as an instructor of Pool in the schools and at the youth recreation centres, and in spite of not being particular knowledgeable as a Pool player himself, he accepted this task. He figured that if someone wants to become a hockey-player that someone will first have to learn how to tie the skates to the feet, then how to skate and then finally how to play hockey – Pool just could’nt be all that much different?

Once established in the local Billiard club it did not take long before Jorgen also started to help out when tournaments were being organized, or some celebrity would visit the city to show how Pool should be played. “Sundsvalls Biljardklubb” was one of the very best clubs in Sweden and also one that organized more prestigous events than any other. Jimmy Caras, Paul Gerni and Jim Rempe, all of them big names around the world, visited Sundsvall and on each occassion Jorgen was not only participating in the organizing of the shows, but was also responsible for the covering of the visit in the local newspaper, another assignment that did consume a lot of time besides the school.

Jorgen Sandman started to deliver newspapers in the morning already at the age of 8, together with his older brother. Since his father was an old friend to the boss for the distribution department at the local newspaper, Jorgen started to work the night-shift stacking the newspapers at the age of 15, and during summers he would work as a substitute in the subscription department.

Having started to write small reports about the Billiard club and its activities at the age of 18, he soon found himself covering a number of smaller sports on behalf of the newspaper – as a freelance sports journalist. One thing lead to another and all of a sudden he was then also occasionally covering Soccer. A few years later he was then offered a full-time job as a radio commentator for the local sports news. Being an active athlete and a volunteer at such a high degree already, he ended up turning this offer down though – a decision that he has questioned many times over later on in life!

On the 1st of February 1979, less than 4 months before Jorgen Sandman graduated from the local university, he was then offered to become a full-time administrator for Sundsvalls Biljardklubb, a job he ended up accepting, and since then he has not been working with anything but Billiards Sports – a decision that in time would bring him recognition far beyond his hometown and his country.

The family of Jorgen Sandman, his mother as well as his brother and sister with their respective families, is living in his hometown Sundsvall. This also goes for his first daughter, Kim, who was born in 1981. She nowadays has a family of her own, with her little son, Max, born in 2004. Jorgen Sandman got married with beautiful Anna from Kiev (UKR)in 2001 and later in the same year they together were blessed with a wonderful daughter, Michelle. The family lives in Oslo (NOR).