Dance. Dance. Dance.

It’s been a while since I last sang out loud in a football stadium, by which I mean sang and really meant it. It was a lot of fun to drone along with the 80’s synthesizer beats of Milan, sempre per te last November. My Spanish and Catalan really don't reach beyond Atleti Atleti and the first verse of the Barcelona Hymne, respectively and quite frankly, they don't have to for me to have a great time. I’m not a singer. I hardly ever clap and I am too damn awkward to do anything that even remotely resembles dancing in the stands.

I have never done any of this, or not overly exuberant in any case, because the last time I did I was kindly asked to knock it off. I was in Waalwijk, watching a Roda away game, when I mustered all the courage my seven year old body could muster and I started questioning, in song, the whereabouts of the stadium in which the game was taking place. After two lines, I was politely, yet urgently asked to sit down by an RKC fan. I did, and I haven't gotten up ever since.

Today I clapped. I sang. I jumped. I even extended my arms heavenwards and clenched my fists occasionally. After Roda went down 2-0, at times I was the only one in my section singing along with those in the crowd to whom singing louder than the opposing fans seems as important, if not more important, than the result itself. My throat is sore. I am typing this without the use of the ring finger on my right hand, which I injured earlier this week and which I’ve completely numbed down today by clapping. I’ve travelled 600 kilometres in the past two days to see my team lose. But when I look at the balance over the whole weekend, I may have lost a cup final and possibly the permanent use of my now slightly off-coloured finger, but I feel a little closer to a club which sometimes seems like half the world away.

And if that’s too damn sappy for you, then here are some match reports which bring you the cold, inescapable reality.

Cup Fever!

Catch it! Or, you know, don't. Whatever.

Only 28 more hours to go to the kick off of the final, and I'm scared shitless. This video was made at the 1997 Cup final which I've described in earlier posts, and still reduces me to tears a little.

Four Guys Walk Onto A Television Set...

So four guys walk onto a television set. It's the start of a joke, but there is a crucial difference. There is no pun, only earnest. But there is a joke...

A man is very angry. He screams and yells. He cares, or at the very least he screams he does, at the top of his lungs. Another man agrees. A third one is silent. He is partly responsible for what it is that angers the other two men, so he remains, wisely, very quiet. The other man screams some more. They care, they care, they care, they scream. A fourth man, the final man, asks them again if they care. They do. He tells them it is so great to see them care so much, and they nod emphatically. They are proud of themselves for caring. Who else is going to, at a time like this? When Feyenoord plays such poor football?

The second man smiles. He likes the sound of that. Feyenoord plays such horrible football, and he can say it out loud right into the camera, as long as he does so in the name of compassion. It vindicates him. If he would say that Feyenoord plays poor football, he would be hung at the break of dawn, like in an old Western film. But if he says Feyenoord plays such horrible football and that it hurts him so much to see it, he gets away - no, better even. He repeats it, and waits to see how long he can wait with adding ‘and I care’. He looks around. He got away with, my god he did. This emboldens him greatly. He gets cocky and tries to push the boundaries a little: ‘ Feyenoord – Ajax should always be a top fixture, but if you look at it this year…Feyenoord losing at home and in Amsterdam…shameful’. He cannot believe it. Nobody else said a thing. There is the smile again. He did it. He finally said what he had always wanted to say, and got away with it.

The third man remains quiet, and absently tries to think of his results with Feyenoord against Ajax. They couldn’t have been very well. None of his other results were particularly good, and there is no reason to assume these would be any different. He looks at the other men. Maybe they remember? But they don’t care. Look at them foaming at the mouth about the sorry state Feyenoord is in. Not his Feyenoord, mind you. If any of them will ask him about his responsibility he has his answers ready. Budget, budget, budget, and that’s the end of it, but only partly because it is true. Mark Wotte is the other part of his two-part excuse. Also only partly true, but everyone dislikes Mark, so everyone has only very little hesitation to blame him. ‘Ruud?’ ‘Mark is such a pushover’, the third man thinks. ‘Ruud?’ He startles into action. ‘Not my fault, small budget, bad transfer policy.’ But isn’t he at least partly responsible for that? ‘No, no, no. Mark Wotte is.’ The four men agree.

The fourth man is starting to get desperate. He has been trying to guilt the third man into taking some sort of accountability in the whole affair, but he just sits there and answers ‘Mark Wotte’ to everything. The other two seem content screaming about a little, even if Frits has been gleefully crossing the line between objective journalism and sheer unbridled bias and Jan is slowly starting to show the first symptoms of anger-induced heart-failure. Ah, well. He turns solemnly to the camera and tells the little red light that ‘that is our show, people.’

It is, indeed.

Christiane Amanpour Has Got Nothing On Me

If I saw Christiane Amanpour turn around a corner somewhere, I’d dive head-first into the nearest Kebab Shop in search of refuge of whatever doom it is that would follow shortly. But tonight, even though Christiane is probably out there dodging killer African turtles somewhere, she has got slightly less on me than she would have on any other night.

As I type this, walls are crumbling everywhere around me. Flocks of young men are roaming the streets in search of their next victim. Hide your mailboxes, garden gnomes and, if you have any, your children. None of them are save for the ferocious onslaught that follows a night of riots with a massive arrest count of two.

I might have been overreacting a bit when I said the walls were crumbling around me. To my knowledge, nothing has actually crumbled as of yet. At least not at the site the actual riots took place yesterday, which is half a kilometre away from me. It is now ‘hermetically sealed off’ from the outside world. The fences seem to have a Siren-like effect on large groups of youthful riot tourists, who come swarming towards them practically begging for an arrest. I am not one of them. In spite of their ridiculous proximity (calls from concerned relatives are coming in) and my growing curiosity, I have managed to miss every single sight of anarchist behaviour.

What always puzzled me about civilian unrest, and what I now get to experience semi-first hand is its ability to be unavoidably present (unless, apparently, you just don’t leave your house for an entire day) at one moment, completely vanish over night, only to resurge the following evening. Where are these people during the day? Do they work? Do they prepare ritually for battle during their paper rounds? Who are these rebels of the night? But most importantly: why do they insist on throwing rocks when they know they are just going to get a canister of teargas in reply. It seems pretty obvious who’s getting the short end of that deal.

When Feyenoord last won a championship in 1999, riots erupted that made the centre of Rotterdam look somewhat like a Balkan war zone. While this would (should?) not make immediate sense to most of us, a Feyenoord fan later explained to me that this had been because of the fans’ inability to fully grasp what was going on; success. Out of sheer confusion, they started tearing down their own city. After so many years of supporting their hilariously unsuccessful team, violently expressing their frustration, even in victory, had become their only way to respond.

I wish you all good night, as I prepare to sleep right on through another night of civil disobedience.

Sleep well, Christiane Amanpour. We are the same, you and I.