Helsinki Red Room – There is a unique futs museum in Helsinki

A rather modest-looking apartment building in the heart of Helsinki hides a secret.

From the corridor on the fourth floor, the door opens to one of the newest prides of Finnish football culture: a huge private museum dedicated to Manchester United.

Suddenly, it is difficult to find a connection between one of the biggest football clubs in the world and the capital of Finland. No Finnish player has yet appeared in United’s first team, and the Red Devils have not visited the Helsinki Olympic Stadium since September 1965, when HJK debuted in the European Cup with an honorable 2–3 home defeat.

Now, however, 57 years later, a new link can be found in the city.

– It is difficult to describe emotional states, because they are associated with so many different tones from one’s own history. I can’t keep my pants on, Jere Virtanen start.

Virtanen is talking about the coming Thursday.

That’s when his Helsinki Red Room museum will be officially opened after a couple of years of waiting for the pandemic.

And no less than 15 former Manchester United players will perform the task. Among them are, for example, those who decided the victory of the spring 1990 English Cup Lee Martinthe 1999 triple champion David May and the winner of the Champions League 2008 in the heavy rain in Moscow Wes Brown.

However, as the brightest star, he has represented United for 13 years and in almost 500 matches Bryan Robson.

– Circle closes. Robson is the reason I started supporting United.

Virtanen certainly shares the relationship of millions of fans with “Captain Marvel”.

Raised by Hongan

Virtanen is Wayne Rooney’s and Cristiano Ronaldo a peer, but the football career of the boy from Espoo did not take off in the same way.

– I started in Honga Taavinkylä’s team, whose field I walked five minutes from home. Futis completely blew me away then.

– I chose number seven because of Robbo and stayed on that path.

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Virtanen’s love for United was ignited even before the football giant, who captured championships with a series of fire, hatched from the team. Robson’s position in the club’s history is largely explained by his merits in the cup victories of 1983, 1985 and 1990, as well as the championship of the European Cup Winners’ Cup (1991), which has since been abandoned.

Today he belongs to sir Alex Ferguson, by David Gill (ex-CEO) and of John Murtough (sports director) with the manager Erik ten Hagia to the advisory United think tank.

Coincidentally, Robson would also have had work to do in Manchester this coming weekend when he had to manage the player legends hegemony match against Liverpool at Old Trafford.

– Robbo said that he had promised to go to Helsinki for the opening of Jere’s museum.

It started with a wooden spoon

The example well reflects Virtanen’s position in the United hierarchy. A reporter from The Athletic sports magazine is also coming to Thursday’s opening, and Virtase is also being made into a full-scale documentary for United’s own TV channel.

The club has promised that Helsinki Red Room will appear in one of the match programs distributed in connection with this season’s league match.

– It all started when I bought Puumala at the market David Beckham’s jersey with my own money. After that, collecting only grew.

Virtanen’s luck was that the available funds grew at the same pace as the hobby.

– I found myself buying stuff related to United when I started doing the same for my first summer job salaries. I started to pick up stuff from the British when I moved permanently into working life.

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Now Virtanen is a successful serial entrepreneur whose head office of one of his companies can be found in a side room of the Helsinki Red Room.

– The biggest step came when I experienced success in the business world. I feel that I can invest in this stuff because it will both hold its value and this story will grow.

Benches from the stadium

Virtanen removes his business talent from the equation when he talks about his museum. For example, he never sells his items.

I mean, captain Roy Keane The value of the jersey worn in the match in the triple championship season has multiplied, it hangs as one permanent exhibit on the wall of the Helsinki Red Room.

– The value does not increase tenfold this quickly in any rational matter, the value of Uniik’s goods is determined only by what someone agrees to pay for it.

In the Helsinki Red Room, you can also find a couple of benches that were used at Old Trafford.

– I got them so cheap that I knew at the time of purchase that they were about ten percent of the “real” value.

The secret of the benches was that they appeared at an auction that did not specialize in football memorabilia.

Helsinki Red Room is an exceptional place in the whole world. Virtanen admits that he is by no means the biggest United collector, but he doesn’t know anyone else who would have organized his own collection into a museum.

– For others, the stuff is in storage or in storage. Supporter associations can have such spaces, but not private people.