March 8, 2017
The end of junk food novelties is nowhere in sight: this time it’s a ‘Vitesse frikandel’, a frikandel that echoes the yellow and black colours of Arnhem’s local football club to celebrate the club’s placement in the Eredivisie cup final against Sparta from Rotterdam.
The frikandel has a slice of Dutch cheese melted over it with stripes of BBQ sauce and costs 1,75 euro at snackbar ‘t Beumertje, fans of their local football club.
(Link and a pic of the Vitesse frikandel: gelderlander.nl)
March 1, 2017
World-famous Dutch tattoo artist Hanky Panky (Henk Schiffmacher), who by the way is celebrating his 65th birthday and 40 years of tattooing at pop temple Paradiso in Amsterdam later this month, will be drawing the design on the Dutch championship (aka ‘Eredivisie’) football.
The football he will design is for the 2017-2018 Dutch championship season, done specially for the 60th anniversary of the Eredivisie and should represent Dutch culture.
According to Wikipedia, Hanky Panky is an expert in the field of body art, having curated exhibitions, written books, and presented TV shows on the subject. And he’s given tattoos to the likes of Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kurt Cobain (RIP) of Nirvana frontman and Lemmy (RIP) of Motörhead.
(Link: footballstories, Photo of Football by Bramus, some rights reserved)
November 6, 2016
Amsterdam’s football club Ajax has sent 27 crates of beer to Scottish club East Kilbride FC of South Lanarkshire to congratulate them for breaking Ajax’s world record of most games won in a row last Saturday by winning against BSC Glasgow FC.
Former goalkeeper and now Ajax’s general manager Edwin van der Sar recorded a video message to congratulate the Scots telling them to ‘have some beer on us’.
A truck full of beer, Belgian Jupiler beer, basically Stella’s big brother, was driven right onto a dark and cold pitch with patches of snow.
Enjoy this classy football moment in English:
(Link: www.at5.nl, Photo by Wikimedia user Carolus Ludovicus, some rights reserved)
September 27, 2016
September 21 saw the official world debut of a video assistant referee (VAR) in a competitive football game, starring Amsterdam Ajax vs Willem II of Tilburg (Ajax won 5-0). As well, Willem II midfielder Anouar Kali became the first player in the country to get a red card recommended by a VAR, after his yellow card in a Dutch Cup tie against Ajax was turned into a red one.
Staring at six video screens in a van, the VAR can review an incident when asked by the match referee as well as advise officials about incidents they may have missed. The International Football Association Board will probably decide in 2018 whether to authorise the use of video technology and incorporate it within the laws of the game.
The intervention confused fans of the Amsterdam-Tilburg game, as the change from yellow to red was not communicated to them, something that would have to be remedied. Other sports like rugby and hockey have been using VAR for a while, but football has been slow to join in. Video refereeing was tested again on September 22 with Rotterdam Feyenoord vs. FC Oss (Feyenoord won 4-1) , while I was in the pub for a quick visit.
The video referee communicates with the referee on the pitch within a few seconds of any incident. As well as advising on penalty and card decisions, they can help clear up cases of mistaken identity or infringements in the lead-up to a goal such as offside or foul play. If the on-pitch referee wants, they can also review the video footage themselves before making a final decision.
(Links: www.worldsoccer.com, phys.org, Photo of Football by Bramus, some rights reserved)
Tags: Ajax, Amsterdam, football, video refereeing
June 10, 2016
If you hadn’t heard the news, this is the first time since 1984 that the Dutch won’t be participating in the UEFA European Championship. So what’s a Dutch fan to do?
In Amersfoort, the city has decided to get behind Belgium’s Red Devils with a huge flag of Belgium hanging off a church tower, something you’d never see in any other context. Also known as the southern neighbours, Belgium seems to be the logical choice, although opinions differ.
A whole bunch of Dutch-Turks will just root for Turkey as usual, with countryman Oğuzhan “Ozzy” Özyakup being the only Dutchman playing in the competition, apparently. Some of my friends are cheering for whatever nationality their partner is that’s actually in the competition like Poland and France.
According to the Guardian’s Joris Luyendijk in a sad article about the state of the Netherlands this week, the Dutch national team’s proudest moment, “probably came in June 1988 when an ethnically mixed team of Dutch footballers won the European Championships, beating the all-white teams of arch-rival Germany and then Russia. It felt like the ultimate vindication of multiculturalism.”
Have a look at this English presentation of what it looked like when ‘Oranje’ (Team Orange’) killed it back in 1988.
(www.rtvutrecht.nl, Photo by Wikimedia user Carolus Ludovicus, some rights reserved)
April 11, 2016
Fans of Rotterdam football club Feyenoord and fans of FC Utrecht are entangled in a graffiti competition that involves dissing each other using street art. This video shows Bokito eating an army of gnomes, and there’s a whole bunch of other graffiti on film that was spotted in and around Rotterdam.
Another work of graffiti has Feyenoord Ollie, a spherical grey elephant, covering gnomes in pooh, apparently a response to some graffiti in Utrecht where a big Ollie is being attacked by an army of gnomes.
Bokito the gorilla made world news some years ago after attacking a woman at a zoo in Rotterdam, which seems fitting. The gnomes from Utrecht are drawn by KBTR, which sounds like ‘kabouter’, the Dutch word for gnome, many of which can be seen in Utrecht and in other parts of the country.
We used a KBTR picture only because last time we used a Bokito picture, we were almost sued out of existence.
(Link: www.rijnmond.nl, Photo by Aarnoot, some rights reserved)
Tags: Bokito, football, gnome, gorilla, graffiti, Rotterdam, street art, Utrecht
November 26, 2015
Are you a serious Feyernoord football fan from Rotterdam and can’t stand another day of staring at all those Ajax brand fire extinguishers hanging all over the place, taunting you and reminding you of the rival Amsterdam football club? Two Rotterdam cousins have the solution for you: Feyernoord stickers.
Yes, the guys at Firenoord have designed a Feyernoord sticker that looks just like the Ajax one so you can stick it over that reminder of the other football club at 3 euro a pop. They are currently sold out, but they’ll surely be more for all the people that just cannot live with those distasteful Ajax fire extinguishers.
Just like the website says, ‘no more Ajax in Rotterdam’.
(Link: www.rijnmond.nl, Screenshot: www.firenoord.nl)
Tags: Ajax, Feyernoord, fire extinguisher, football, Rotterdam
October 21, 2015
Why come to the Netherlands when you can go to Denmark? Dutch television show ‘Zondag met Lubach’ made a video called ‘Do not come to Holland’ in English with Dutch subtitles. Spoiler alert: no mention of drugs or prostitution.
Firstly, don’t call the country ‘Holland’, especially when a lot of refugees are settling in outside the provinces of North and South Holland. The locals will think you’re trying to co-opt their karma points.
The ‘Dunglish’ voice-over was done by someone who had fun switching from an American over-the-top movie trailer style voice to a fake posh British accent you hear in safety instruction videos on KLM. It’s also weird to hear someone faking a British accent and then using the word ‘soccer’ instead of ‘football’.
The Dunglish translation of ‘there goes nothing above Groningen’ is cringeworthy: try ‘Nothing tops Groningen’ for a proper translation or ‘There’s nothing above Groningen’ to keep the Dutch humour flowing. The video does make up for it with “Come to Denmark: it’s the Netherlands, but somewhere else”, which is the very polite version of the talk down the pub as far as accepting refugees in the country at the moment.
For any kind of social commentary on how the Dutch government has cocked up the welcoming of refugees, read the Dutch papers. Or don’t.
(Image: screenshot of ‘Do not come to Holland’ video)
October 14, 2015
Dutch online lingerie shop Pabo.nl, also Europe’s biggest, conducted its own survey into who has the biggest boobs and the longest dongs per province, something to briefly take your mind off the fact that the Netherlands is not playing in the European Football Champs this summer.
Women in Zeeland have lots of cup A fans, but Utrecht takes the win for the smallest boobs overall. However, Zeeland has about 10% of women ordering cup F, which no other province has. The cup B fans come from Flevoland, the C cups are for Utrecht, D cups Overijssel, and most of the bigger sizes go to Groningen in the lead for Cup E.
If you believe in condoms sales as a size indicator, North Holland and Friesland buy the biggest condoms. Friesland stands out as a province that buys twice as many flavoured condoms as the rest of the country. I wonder if they’re orange flavoured.
(Link: www.bndestem.nl, photo: ecollo.com)
Tags: bra size, bras, condoms, Flevoland, football, Friesland, Groningen, men, North Holland, Overijssel, Utrecht, women, Zeeland
August 14, 2015
Dutch professional football player and coach Bob ‘Bobby’ Haarms is being honoured with a tram stop in the district of IJburg in Amsterdam. However, Amsterdam’s public transport company GVB couldn’t be arsed to check the spelling of his name, as an ‘r’ is missing.
The GVB has six more days to modify the sign before the Haarms family officially drives through a banner on a tram to unveil the tram stop. Haarmslaan is spelt properly online so far. Amusingly enough, the tweet is from a police officer and it’s not clear if she noticed the mistake.
(Link: www.at5)
