Cup Season! Part 1: When Blind Enthousiasm Clouds Proper Judgement

Because today is the day of the Dutch Cup Final, I would like to share with you, in two parts, the story of my first Cup Final, Roda JC - Heerenveen in 1997.

The barhand-turned-bouncer and his mother had braced themselves for the scuffles that regularly accompanied the climax of the Dutch cup, the final in Rotterdam. Their bar lay near ‘de Kuip’, the impressive Feyenoord stadium in which the final of the Dutch cup is held every year, in an attempt to mirror the tradition of the English FA Cup. From behind their reinforced bar, ready for whatever the visiting fans would, possibly quite literally, throw at them, they had looked on curiously as fans of the teams who had made the final made their way to the stadium without any of the hostilities they had gotten so used to over the past years. When they saw a modified cycle, which five SC Heerenveen fans had driven to Rotterdam all the way from Friesland, pass, the perplexed bar owner ordered her massive son to open the door and see what the hell was going on.

When he did, I darted in past him – a feat in itself – and was followed by Roda JC and SC Heerenveen fans alike. When I returned from the bathroom, I saw the bar owner explain to my parents that this was not exactly what they had expected would happen.

“We open up every year on the day of the final and we wait to see which team’s fans are the first to arrive. And then he makes sure fans from the other team don’t get in”. She nodded at her offspring. He liked that fans of both teams appreciated him for this annual position of authority, and felt a sense of responsibility for the gentle proceedings of this particular afternoon. To him, the only possible explanation of this state of fan pacification was his bulky presence. To some extent, he may have been right. However, the fact that Roda JC and Heerenveen fans can be compared to the warmongering equivalent of Iceland and Switzerland, respectively, might also have been the cause of this mutual state of benevolence.

As his mother told us this in her heavy Rotterdam accent that her son was such a sweet, stand-up type of guy, I urged my parents to leave for the stadium. I was about to see my first cup final and I didn’t want to miss a single minute of it.