KFC Dessel Sport – ASV Geel (10-03-2018)

 

In the end we didn’t have to leave Sportfreunde Lotte – SC Fortuna Köln early, as we make the roughly 275 km southwest easily, arriving in Dessel early, giving us time to eat at the excellent Frituur Den Brink and still arrive several minutes before kick-off.

 

The Armand Melis Stadium is relatively new, built in 2009, and can hold 4,284 people. I doubt there were ever more than 1,500 there though. It is home to the KFC Dessel Sport, founded in 1926, and a mainstay in the lower divisions of Belgian football. Today they play in the Tweede Klasse Amateurs (literally “Second Division Amateurs”), which, after the latest reform in Belgian football, is really the fourth division.

 

We buy a ticket for the smaller long stand for €15, which is not cheap for the fourth division in Belgium. There are some 600 people, including ca. 60 people from Geel, which is 15 km away. The fan are local and older; the whitest audience ever. Only some 15 kids are singing.

  

The game starts slow and uneventful. In the 14^th minute Dessel has its first good attack, but the striker can’t connect to the hard cross. Two minutes later Geel has an amazing volley from 30 meters, which goes just wide. Overall the play goes back and forth, but the passing is pretty poor.

 

In the 26^th minute the hosts have a good attack, but the shot goes wide. Four minutes later the visitors force the goalie to a good safe before a deflected ball is headed off the goal line. Dessel Sport has most of the game and several good attacks. And then, two minutes before the break, Dessel has a good fast attack, pass in the box, which is finished cool: 1-0. Half-time.

 

The second half starts explosive. A Dessel player goes away from the goal, but is fouled in the box: penalty. It is shot hard in the center, but goes is: 2-0.

 

In the 52^nd minute the hosts have a surprise shot from 25 meters that goes just over. Seven minutes later the visitors have a huge chance, but he passes to no one, rather than shoots at goal. In the 62^nd minute Dessel has a good attack, plays a double pass, gets into the box, passes the ball out, and from the edge of the box a shot is deflected and goes in: 3-0.

 

Just minutes later Geel attacks, plays the ball into the box, behind everyone, and someone slides it into the goal: 3-1. It’s going fast now. Both teams have a few chances, but 3-1 will be the final score.

Dessel Sport is a classic lower level Belgian football experience. Small venue, small crowd, mostly local and friendly.

FC Emmen – Jong AZ (09-03-2018)

 

As part of our annual groundhop-weekend, my brother and I start out in the Northeast of The Netherlands, at the one (more or less) traditional professional football country I still had to see in my native country: FC Emmen. It only joined the professional league in 1985, as simply Emmen, and changed names in 2005, after splitting its amateur and professional branches.

 

We park just outside the stadium with the beautiful name De Oude Meerdijk. It was built in 1977 and renovated as a multi-function stadium in 2001. It can hold 8.600 people, but this Friday night it was officially half full (4.231), although it looked more like one-third full. We buy a ticket for the seated stand behind the goal for €10 and enter the stadium just before kick-off.

 

FC Emmen plays in the Eerste Divisie (Second Division), which is now called Jupiler League, after the sponsor. The opponent this night is Jong AZ, the youth team of AZ, which plays in the Eredivisie (First Division). Youth teams are the scourge of contemporary football, dominating second and third divisions in many countries, but having no supporters.

We are seated close to the loudest home fans, a group of a few hundred FC Emmen fans with banners. While the stadium looks new, it is old style, which means we are close to the pitch. This gives it a good atmosphere, even with a relatively empty stadium and no away fans. The excellent snacks also help.

 

In the 5^th minute every stands and applauds for a minute. It seems to be a tribute to someone close to the club who recently died. That is also the most exciting to happen in the first minutes. In the 8^th minute FC Emmen has a long attack, which leads to a corner, and a rebound that is finally headed from 2 meters… over the goal! In the 16^th minute a shot from the edge of the box goes well over. By that time the home fans have already stopped singing.

 

 

In the 19^th minute FC Emmen has an accidental attack, which leads to a midfielder shoot from 11 meters at the crossbar, and the ball bounces off the goal line. The play exists of slow attacks, little pressure, and few chances or fouls. In the 42^nd minute FC Emmen has a free kick, which is headed wide from 5 meters. Half-time score: 0-0.

 

The second half starts much more exciting, with FC Emmen having two shots at goal in the first five minutes. After that the hosts have a (semi-)chance roughly every five minutes, which leads to what I think is the first goalie save of the game in the 70^th minute!

 

After another few good shots by FC Emmen do not go in and it seems to be a 0-0 night. But then, in the 89^th minute, Jong AZ gets a rare chance, and a shot from 12 meter is deflected by a defender and goes in: 0-1!

 

The stadium is in shock, and so is the home team, which makes a silly foul in the extra time, which leads to a penalty. The penalty is not very well taken, but goes in nonetheless: 0-2. This is also the surprising, and undeserved, final score.

Despite the really poor game, and the underwhelming atmosphere on the stands, FC Emmen is a fun groundhop, a bit out of the way (by Dutch standards), combining a modern stadium with an old-style feel.

SC Cambuur – FC Dordrecht (14-01-2011)

I meet up with my brother T. halfway between Amsterdam and Leeuwarden. The weather is terrible; it has been raining for days, but according to the website the game is still on. More than an hour before kick-off we arrive at the Cambuurstadion (Cambuur Stadium) and park our car directly in front of it. While the stadium was built in 1936, it has been renovated several times; the capacity remained roughly the same, however, and is currently set at 13.500. Recently it has become almost integrated into a shopping center, which is a pretty bizarre view.

We kill the time by eating something in a fish restaurant at the square in front of the stadium. By the time we walked over to the stadium, the square was filling up with Cambuur fans. We went to the ticket office and bought tickets for the seating area behind the goal for 14 euro each.

Tonight’s game was the first game of the second round of the Jupiler League (Second Division), between SC Cambuur-Leeuwarden and FC Dordrecht, both in the center of the table. Officially 5.850 people had found their way to the cozy Cambuurstadion; a small, all covered stadium that was so typical until the 1980s, but can hardly be found in the Netherlands anymore. The weather was terrible.

From the outset Dordrecht was the better team, even if they created only a couple of half chances. In the 15th minute a deflected header of the visitors went wide, while a couple minutes later a great Dordrecht pass led to a free header that went wide. Although we truly enjoyed the atmosphere, the game didn't bring much and was, thus, 0-0 at half time.

After getting some snacks from the (very busy) snack car next to the stand, we got back to our seats for the second half. The pace was already much lower and the quality of play wasn’t particularly high either. In fact, it took until the 58^th minute for the first really noteworthy situation: a shot by the visitors was cleared from the goal line. Three minutes later the first good shot at goal of the hosts was a goal: 1-0.

Dordrecht seemed dazed by the goal. Having dominated the game up till that point, the Cambuur goal was truly unexpected and the lead undeserved. Five minutes later the hosts scored again: 2-0, which again led to much song and dance.

[ Here should have been a video, but the shitty blogger page doesn't upload it ]

After Cambuur’s second goal the visitors no longer believed in an away win. The fans, who had been critical for most of the game, were now chattering happily. The game slowly but steadily rolled toward the end. At the end of the game Cambuur brought in Mark De Vries, a prolific striker who used to play at Hearts in Edinburgh (among various other teams). Within minutes he scored his goal: a smart through ball was professionally finished by De Vries. 3-0 was also the final score.

SC Cambuur is one of the last teams in the Netherlands were you can still experience football as it was in the 1970s: cozy… local… authentic. I am happy that the club is no longer under threat of bankruptcy, although saddened that they want to love to a new stadium in the future.

BV Veendam – SC Cambuur Leeuwarden (18-03-2005)

Last Friday it finally happened: I visited De Langeleegte (literally: The long Emptiness), the almost mythical stadium of BV Veendam, a small Eerste Divisie (Second Division) team in the northeast corner of the Netherlands!

(An earlier attempt had failed when we arrived at the stadium after a 3 hour journey to find the game cancelled because of bad weather.)

Around 15.15 my mate M.T. picked me up at Schiphol – I returned from a trip to England and fortunately Easyjet didn’t have a delay this time – and we made our way to the other side of the country. Without a problem we passed Amsterdam and drove into the Flevopolder. The sky turned more and more grey and when we entered the province of Groningen it also started to rain a bit. In short, perfect weather for a game in De Langeleegte!

Just before 19.00 we arrived in Veendam and, after a not too subtle shoarma, we bought a ticket for the Promenade stand for 12 euro. To my surprise, De Langeleegte looked quite cozy; it reminded me of the old stadium of RBC or the new stadium of FC Zwolle. Since the modernization in 1998 the stadium holds 6.500 people. Probably because this was a northern derby against SC Cambuur it was quite busy, approximately half full, I would guess some 2.500 people, including a good 200 from Leeuwarden (ca. 100 km away).

The start of the game was stormy: after 6 minutes it was already 1-0. After that the level of play decreased rapidly and it became a poor kick-and-little-rust-game. The BV Veendam clearly couldn’t do much better, while SC Cambuur had some decent players. Although Cambuur was the less bad team, 1-0 was also the half time score. The whole second half was also for the visitors, who didn’t even play well. In the 70^th minute they finally scored: 1-1 was also the final score.

Despite the poor quality of play, there was a nice and cozy provincial atmosphere in De Langeleegte. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed that it was so busy and full of atmosphere. I had always hoped to visit one of these legendary game in front of 350 spectators and in the pouring rain, for which De Langeleegte was so famous in the 1980s.