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Football: Wherever it may be

~ Laurence's football travels

Football: Wherever it may be

Tag Archives: netherlands

Bunschoten

22 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by laurencereade in S

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Football, groundhopping, Holland, Ijsselmeer, ijsselmeervogels, netherlands, Spakenburg, Sportpark de Westmaat, Topklasse, Tweede Klasse, Utrecht, Zaterdag, Zondag

With the football season over prematurely due to the Coronavirus Pandemic I’m in the unusual position of actually having this blog up to date! So to keep the content coming, and for something to do, I’ll do some old grounds and games where there’s a story to tell.

Saturday 12th February 2011 ko 15.00

Topklasse Zaterdag

SV SPAKENBURG 3 (van der Meiracker 45 81 Houwing 53)

KATWIJK 2 (van Ommerton 29 Ten Heuvel 54)

Att 2,300

Entry €8

Programme Free

Press Pack Free

After the previous evening’s visit to Cambuur the night was spent in Edam, before skirting anti-clockwise around Ijsselmeer Lake before reaching the small town of Bunschoten. The town is a merger of two villages, Spakenburg and slightly confusingly Bunschoten. It isn’t a large town, only roughly 20,000 live here, but for reasons unfathomable it supports two reasonably large clubs Spakenburg and Ijsselmeervogels (Lake Ijssel Birds) , and they play at right-angles to each other! Continue reading →

52.250475 5.379988

The Big Cheese

21 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by laurencereade in L

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Cambuur, Channel Tunnel, Edam, Eindhoven, Erste Divisie, Football, Holland, Leeuwarden, netherlands, travel, Zuider Zee

With the football season over prematurely due to the Coronavirus Pandemic I’m in the unusual position of actually having this blog up to date! So to keep the content coming, and for something to do, I’ll do some old grounds and games where there’s a story to tell.

These next two articles serve two purposes, first to document the one country of the 25 I’ve visited for football, that’s never been covered in this blog- The Netherlands. Secondly this was my first footballing trip abroad as an independent traveller.

Friday 11th February 2011 ko 20.00

Dutch Erste Divisie

CAMBUUR LEEUWARDEN 2 (Schepers 21 Türk 59)

F.C. EINDHOVEN 1 (van Boekel 83p)

Att 5,950

Entry €20

Programme €1

Pennant €7

With this tale, it’s important to set the scene. Three-and-a-half years had passed since that first footballing trip abroad to Sweden, and since that time I’d added no further countries to my experiences. The reason was straightforward, my then wife was claustrophobic and would neither fly, nor go on a cross-channel ferry. I could plan, but I knew that anywhere I went would have to be without her. That I wasn’t prepared to countenance. Continue reading →

53.205509 5.814329

The Devil in the Detail

20 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by laurencereade in S

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

BBC, England, Football, Holland, Hope Powell, Jacqui Oatley, Lionesses, Loes Geurts, netherlands, Rachel Yankey, Salford City Stadium, Womens

Sunday 17th June 2012 ko 17.15

UEFA Women’s European Championship Qualifying Group 6

ENGLAND 1 (Yankey 67)

NETHERLANDS 0

Att 5,505

Entry (all areas) £5

Programme £3

@ Salford City Stadium

This close season mullarky isn’t much fun, I’d gone almost a week without a game! But then Chris Berezai phoned, and said he and Chris Bedford (http://pitch-side-stories.blogspot.co.uk/) were going to this one, so why not?

In purely groundhopping terms, this was quite an important one, as Salford City Stadium is only used by Salford City Reds Rugby League team, and so chances for another association football match at the ground look to be slim. A 5.15 kick-off, presumably to tie in with the Men’s European Championships allowed me a run home at a reasonable hour.

The 12,000 stadium is in fact in Barton-upon-Irwell, Eccles, and was built to replace the rugby club’s former home, The Willows. That ground hosted two association laws games, both between Salford FC and FC United of Manchester. It’s one obvious quirk is partial standing behind both goals, 2/3 of the space being simply tarpaulins. The space is there for an expansion to 20,000 but that would require some major adaptations. The devil in this place, is in the details.

Consider the attendance, well under half capacity but sufficient to cause a massive queue from the M60. The official car park costs £5 but is only bookable in advance, so all other drivers are directed to the nearby aerodrome. That costs £5 too, but the queue to leave afterwards was lengthy, and was worse when we got to the road back to the M60. I’d rather not imagine what it would have been like with 20,000 there.

We approached the ground and discovered the modus operandi was to buy a ticket before heading to the turnstiles. Common enough, but only have three windows open is plain silly, especially another was wasted on programme sales. I saw no programmes on sale in the ground. It wasn’t obvious where our turnstile was so we asked a steward resplendent in his “G4” jacket. He asked which stand we were in, we replied, “The West,” he responded, “Well, I THINK it’s this one, not but I’m not sure where the turnstiles are.” I walked round to the corner, and guessed correctly.

Anyone who’s made a serious attempt at completing the 92 Premier and Football League grounds will recognise the ground. It’s what a tolerably ambitious League 2 club builds. Safe, functional, and utterly lacking in imagination. The sight lines are good, but the leg room lacking, the food hot, but overpriced. It didn’t stop many groundhoppers turning out for this one though! Another annoyance was the insistence of the programme, announcer, and scoreboard of referring to the visitors as “Holland”. Holland for what its worth, is the western area of the Netherlands, and it was the Netherlands National Women’s team on show this evening. Still pricing the tickets at a fiver is an excellent move, and it was an obviously different demographic watching the game. Its also an idea that those organising finals for the FA Vase, and Trophy should take a long look at.

With the Dutch topping the group, and only the top team guaranteed to progress to next year’s finals in Sweden, England needed a win to stay in with a shout of top spot. In front of the BBC2 cameras, the game was as dull as the ground was uninspiring. In a turgid first half both sides passing was too poor to generate a chance worth recording. It took a cheeky bit of quick thinking from England midfielder Rachel Yankey to break the deadock. Awarded a free kick just outside the Dutch box, keeper Loes Geurts started lining up a wall, without checking that the referee had signalled an “On the whistle” kick. She hadn’t, so Yankey neatly lofted her kick into the underguarded net, and left the Dutch to argue the point.

After that the game opened up a little, but was never going to be a game to convert any doubters to the cause of the womens’ game. That’s a real shame, as the BBC has invested much in female football, but I suspect England manager Hope Powell will be far more interested in the leaps and bounds the team has made during her tenure.

There was one more piece of poor management as I left. I walked past two large security guards at reception in order to get team sheets for the three of us. I asked the lady behind the desk, and she looked at me in stunned silence. Eventually another guard said, “Sure, how many do you want?” and went and collected them. In the meantime I was treated to the lady shouting at the guards, ” How did you let HIM in?”

I should have said something, but I collected the teamsheets and disappeared into the Sunday night traffic.



The BBC Commentary team


 

And my radio says tonight its going to freeze

06 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by laurencereade in T

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Deventer, Holland, hotel, netherlands, Slaapfabrik, Take off restaurant, Teuge

3rd 4th & 5th February 2012

The idea of this trip was down to Lee West and Andy Croft. Being both groundhoppers and St Pauli fans they saw this as a trip to watch their team play at Allemannia Aachen’s new ground, and build a footballing weekend around it. The plan was to do 4 games in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and France over 3 days. With Chris Berezai aboard, it all looked rather good on paper…. Trouble is the weather intervened!!!

The first game was to be Go Ahead Eagles, in Deventer, Netherlands. The Slaapfabrik hotel (literally Sleepfactory) in nearby Teuge, was booked, and we took the Eurotunnel shuttle on Friday morning. By them, we’d lost Go Ahead Eagles to a frozen pitch, but had replaced it with equally nearby Apeldoorn. Travelling up though France and Belgium we watched firstly the temperature drop, then it started to snow.. By Antwerp, the motorway was down to a slow trickle, and the windows in Lee’s car were freezing, on the inside. Apeldoorn soon was postponed, despite their artificial pitch, leaving the only realistic option being Herenveen, in the north of the country. After 2 and a half hours, of crawling traffic, and having seen far too much of the Eindhoven ring road, the decision was made to head for the hotel and find a meal.

4 exhausted hoppers, staggered into the hotel, and from that moment everything began to look up. The proprietor showed us to our rooms, each named after somewhere she’d visited ( I got Bora Bora), and we were impressed at both the size and specification. Just as importantly she phoned up a nearby restaurant, The Take Off, so we could have a meal. They’d closed the kitchen for the night, but agreed to reopen for us. With the village thermometer showing -12C we shuffled over to the restaurant, a converted airport terminal, to be met by our waiter.

“So lads, 4 pints and 4 steaks then?” Absolutely delicious and most welcome. Lee went for the Sea Bass, which he demolished nearly as quickly as I did my steak! We were walking back to the hotel when we spotted a little bar. Not much seemed to be going on but, purely for research purposes we decided to have a swift half. The welcome we got when they worked out that our itinerary wasn’t a joke, was as warm as it was cold outside.  What should have been a quick half turned into a hugely enjoyable evening and if it wasn’t for the early start on Saturday we’d have stayed until the small hours. The meat nibbles served up between drinks were also very popular!

The Slaapfabrik had one more treat for us. The continental breakfast served with the winter panorama was a beautiful and delicious end to our stay in Teuge.

The best bit of course is that since we’d seen no football, we get to go back!!!! Here’s a link for the hotel, they deserve it. http://www.deslaapfabriek.nl/

Plotting on the Eurotunnel
Slaapfabrik Hotel
Inside the Slaapfabrik Room Bora Bora

The white streams are my lens freezing up
Lee just about to get warm
Brrrrrrr

Yum
The pub!! Through a frozen lens
A warm welcome in this Dutch pub!

The view at breakfast
Breakfast at Slaapfabrik

52.235449 6.048977

Rhyme and Rjissen

17 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by laurencereade in E

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

31, ball, cap, Dutch, Excellsior, Excelsior, Goal, groundhop, groundhopping, Holland, ijsselmeervogels, League, Netherland, netherlands, Rjissen, Sport Park De Koerbelt, Topklasse, Zaterdag

Saturday 15th October 2011 KO 2.30pm

Topklasse Zaterdag

SVV EXCELSIOR 31 2 (Wilens 46 56)

IJSSELMEERVOGELS 1 (Ramic 30)

Att c1,500

Entry €8

Programme FREE

Teamsheets FREE

Coffee €1

These 4 games were the brainchild of well-respected hopper Peter Ford; I merely provided company, and occasional directions! We used the Channel Tunnel on Friday night, well Saturday morning and stayed the remainder of the night at the spartan, but cheap Formule 1, at Calais Coquelles. Despite a massive hold-up on the Antwerp ring road, we arrived at Sport Park De Koerbelt,in Rjissen, Netherlands around 45 minutes before kick off.

Despite the name the Dutch Topklasse is in fact the 3rd tier, and there’s very little promotion up to the next level the Erstedivisie. In fact the vistors have won the Topklasse Zaterdag for the last 2 seasons, and it was obvious that the locals were keyed up for this game against the “Big Boys.” Which brings me neatly up to the Zaterdag bit. Below the top two levels, Dutch football is split into Saturday and Sunday football, a remnant of the influence of the two major religions in the country. Nominally at least the Catholics play on the Sunday, and the Protestants on the Saturday. Odd, but handy for the groundhopper!

The ground is on the edge of town and has a rural feel, even featuring a narrow gauge railway outside. There’s a large wooden stand, but the impression is one of space, the main pitch is “Veld 3” and there plenty of space for the patrons to mill around or use the excellent clubhouse behind the near goal. It reminded me of Degerfors of Sweden, but smaller.

The game was a cracker. Spakenburg based Vogels clearly had it well within themselves easily and Ramic’s opener, a spectacular overhead kick will live long in the memory. But they reckoned without their host’s persistance, and Wilen’s 25 yard free kick was an excellent reposte. The winner was almost as good as what had preceded, Ten Hove’s cross from the left fooled the Vogels defence, I though Wilens touched it in, the stadium announcer didn’t!

Make no mistake, this was a huge shock, and the expressions on the faces of the home fans at the end spoke volumes. It was then back over the border to Belgium for our second game.


Ramic (in black) scores with an overhead kick



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