Everytime I Think I'm Out, They Pull Me Back In

Kaalheide is just one of the many names on the list of football stadiums that have been deemed obsolete in recent years. Considering the fact that over the past decade many stadiums in the Netherlands have been rebuilt in such a fashion, they now warrant millennium proof names such as Gelredome and ArenA (note the second capital, as Arena itself is obviously not a particularly new name), it seemed the only logical decision Roda JC could make. Downsides? None, whatsoever. A bigger budget to structurally compete with the top clubs. A proper stadium would be needed if the club was to play on a European level every year, as it had done in the past few.

Kaalheide was many things, but a proper stadium, in the eyes of the men in charge at the time, it was not. And indeed it does not say much for a stadium when someone who has been there as often as I, cannot immediately identify on the television whether his club is playing the first leg against a Ukranian opponent at home or away. The similarities between the stadiums in Donetsk and Kerkrade were enough for even me to realize that perhaps, indeed the time had come to make the move.

Others may have followed the placement of any brink on another with their complete and undivided attention, but I hadn’t. Football was, at the age of fifteen, not what was dominantly on my mind. Subscription to the football magazines had long been cancelled. Visits to my grandparents, which I had always loved as they had meant a visit to Roda, were to be avoided at all costs. My developing need for independence meant having to prove I could handle my money myself, which of course I could not. Going to the games by myself was therefore not an option. The ticket I could have managed, but the train would have been a different story. And even if I could have paid for the two hour train trip (one way), I very much doubt my parents would have even let me go on my own. But all the financial problems in the world didn’t matter, because I simply didn’t want to go anymore. And then, in the midst of this growing disinterest, I made up my mind and quit playing myself.

My father looked at me incredulously. He had heard me mention it before, but had always managed to, for whatever reason, make me reconsider. But he must have seen it coming. There were numerous reasons, and I knew he couldn’t shoot down all of them.

- “No time to work on Saturdays”.
More allowance.

- “More time for school.”
“Since when do you care about school?”

Touché.

- “Bad knee.”
Silence.

And that was it. As much as he would have liked me to keep on playing, he was not about to try to convince me my knee was fine.

- “Are you sure?”

I was. Neither of us harbored dreams for any sort of a football career, so that could not have been the cause of his disappointment. I think he genuinely felt bad for me. He had seen how much I enjoyed it. But there were so many good reasons to quit playing, only one of which is given above. The other reasons, both to my father then and to you right now, are not entirely relevant. So I quit, slept in on the first Saturday morning I was off and desperately tried to be done with football altogether.

All of this, though, would most likely not have mattered had I lived in the actual vicinity of the construction site. It would have awed me, much like it swept away the management in a binge of unbridled optimism. But I did not live near the new stadium. In fact, I have never lived anywhere closer than 130 kilometers away from the club. In a densely populated country as the Netherlands, that means I lived closer to virtually every other club in the Dutch league, with the exception of the northern teams but including all of the traditional Dutch top clubs. Those 130 kilometers also meant I thought I could ignore the club and everything around it if I wanted to. And I really, really wanted to.

Later I found out that the physical distance I was removed from where my club played did not matter at all, as both the distance between us and my emotional attachment to and involvement with Roda increased sharply. But I did not see that coming when I was fifteen. I honestly hoped I did not care anymore, and that I would not care again. So Roda JC advanced to the final of the Dutch Cup. And I, once again, stood in the stands with my eyes closed for the full 90 minutes.