Published: 17:00, 20 October 2025 | Updated: 17:00, 20 October 2025

In the run-up to her 50th birthday, Ingrid Halseth made what would normally be considered an unusual request for somebody her age. She asked for a unicycle.

As a budding handball player in her youth before devoting more time to mastering alpine skiing – eventually a silver medallist at the downhill in Norway’s nationals – this actually felt a completely normal present.

‘She tried it twice and got it,’ Ingrid's husband Arne says. ‘And Sverre picked it up easily. It’s not fair. She has the skills which Sverre has inherited. They’re not from me!’

The Sverre in question is the couple’s son, 18-year-old Sverre Nypan, the most expensive footballer ever sold from Norway last summer when Manchester City fended off most of Europe in paying £12.5million to take the midfielder from Rosenborg, the record 26-time champions of his homeland.

The club, whose stadium stands 500 metres from the family home in Trondheim, had Nypan training with their first team at 14 and gave him a professional debut following one year later. He used...