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afc amsterdam The overall champion of Dutch non-League football is decided by a two-legged final between the winners of two separate weekend competitions. The Saturday clubs have a back-ground in Protestant communities who didn’t want to play sport on the Sabbath, while Sun-day clubs are Catholic or non-religious. On June 6, 2014, Sunday champions AFC Amster-dam were preparing for the return home leg against Spakenburg. However, their manager Willem Leushuis could barely set up a decent team, missing six of his squad who had already booked their summer holidays. Among them were four of his most important players, who appeared in 80 per cent of all the league games. With an additional three left out injured, Leushuis had only 13 players at his disposal for what could have been the biggest match in the history of AFC.

“This is the spirit of our club in a nutshell,” says board member Bobby Gehring. “We are a competitive club with good facilities and we aim for the best, but not at all costs. Our staff

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allow players to have their summer break in June, even when this means not being able to play in the finals at the end of the season.” AFC

suggested a single final match, so both clubs would be able to play with their best squads. “This is probably even more typical of AFC,” adds Gehring: “We try to change the rules if we don’t like them.” The plan didn’t work because oppo-

nents Spakenburg protested and the Dutch FA stuck to their original format. AFC surpris-ingly ended up winning the game 3-2, but had already lost the first game 4-1 so Spakenburg were overall champions for 2013-14. The play-off winners can be promoted into the second division, but they are not obliged to go up. This will change in 2016-17 with the introduction of a new professional third tier. Promotion will be no longer voluntary.

Founded in 1895, AFC are the oldest club in Amsterdam, their red, sponsorless shirt with the black “V” being recognised all over the country. Despite their long history the club do not have many titles, a reflection of the fact that they are not so focused on winning. AFC are not among the biggest payers when it comes to expenses, so they attract players for other reasons. They aim to find apartments for their players and sometimes jobs too, through their broad network of business connections.

All of this contributes to the positive, relaxed atmosphere at the club. Visitors to Sportpark Goed Genoeg will see several giant signs advising them to “keep smiling”. This is not just a slogan: there’s an optimistic vibe around the club that’s not undermined by poor results or even a relegation battle (having been divisional champions in 2014, AFC dropped to tenth in the season just finished). There isn’t much to complain about either. Since AFC are a wealthy club with high membership fees, they have tended to attract people from well-off backgrounds in the south of the city, giv-ing them a rather elitist image. Playing against more working-class clubs such as DWV, from the north of Amsterdam, and DWS or DCG in the west, always meant a real battle. “As a player, I enjoyed playing these matches a lot,” Gehring says. “Clubs like DWV really wanted to beat us, so it often got pretty intense.”

Times have changed now, with many of the city’s struggling semi-professional clubs drop-ping down the leagues or merging, as recently happened with DWV & De Volewijckers. Meanwhile, AFC have become a more diverse club. Gehring is now able to say that “our members come from all social backgrounds in Amsterdam”, something that is especially true

“our staff allow players to have their summer break in June, even when this means not being able to play in the finals at the end of the season”

Top AFC (red) in action against SpakenburgMiddle The Sportpark Goed Genoeg overlooked by the Tommy Hilfiger HQ Bottom A welcoming sign at the entrance

With Ajax around there is no place for a second professional club in Amsterdam, but in the amateur divisions there are teams with famous histories who are showing there is more to a club than league position

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for the youth department, where many well-off families are spending a little extra for their children’s football education at AFC. This has proved well worth the money, since the club hold a national record for supplying the largest number of youth players for the pro-fessional sides. Although this is obviously something to be proud of, Gehring also sees a downside. “Young players seem to aim to play at professional clubs instead of really seeing AFC as ‘their’ club.” This problem is reflected by attendances at home matches – an average crowd of 404 last season made AFC the fourth-lowest supported of the 16 teams in their divi-sion. AFC followers have other things going on than supporting their first team on a regular basis, either watching Ajax, or other games on satellite TV, or even just the general opportuni-ties of city life. AFC Amsterdam are an unusual club but still a highly successful one, whose good reputation and respect for tradition could serve as an example for others.

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Door Wilskracht sterkShould you ever attend a Champions League match in the Amsterdam Arena, among the 50,000-plus crowd watching Ajax taking on Bar-celona or Borussia Dortmund, spare a thought for the club that used to be their fiercest rivals in Amsterdam. Today, DWS (Door Wilskracht Sterk – Strength Through Willpower) play in the fourth regional division of the Dutch amateur competition, in front of fewer than 100 supporters for home matches. How differ-ent things used to be. In 1954, when the first national professional league came into being, Ajax and DWS were on more or less equal foot-ing. In fact, both teams attracted comparable crowds until the late 1960s.

Originally from the working class Spaarn-dammerbuurt district, DWS remained in the top flight until they were relegated in 1962. But rather than this being the start of a slow decline, what then followed was an achieve-ment that no other club in the country has ever managed to match. DWS gained promotion back to the top flight in 1963, and the following year became Dutch champions. Their squad included Jan Jongbloed, who was the keeper for the national team during the 1974 and 1978 World Cup finals, and Rinus Israel, who would go on to both play for and coach Feyenoord.

DWS reached the quarter-finals of the fol-lowing season’s European Cup, eventually

losing 2-1 on aggregate to the Hungarian side Vasas Gyor. This European adventure proved to be the high water mark for DWS. Crowds started dwindling as people moved out of the city and into the suburbs. At the same time, across town, Rinus Michels and an exception-ally talented group of young players turned Ajax into a footballing powerhouse; first in the city, then nationally, then worldwide.

DWS were not the only team in town to struggle. As a result, they got together with sec-ond-level Blauw Wit in 1972 to form FC Amster-dam, playing in the Olympic Stadium. The next year another small local club, De Volewijckers, who had been wartime champions, also joined in. FC Amsterdam made a promising start, reaching the 1974-75 UEFA Cup quarter-finals in a run that included an away win against Internazionale. Sadly, the club were soon dam-aged by infighting and mismanagement, and closed down completely in 1982.

However, DWS, Blauw Wit and De Volewi-jckers continued to exist as amateur clubs after the merger (DWS only supplied their first team – professionals – for FC Amsterdam). Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard and Johnny Metgod all

played for the amateur DWS before going on to greater things. Living links to the past also remain within the club. “We have a number of older supporters who still remember us from the times we played at the top level and in the Spaarndammerbuurt,” says Jeffrey Meijer, a member of the DWS board. “Andre Tijlman, from our championship-winning side, is still very much involved. If we are at home or have an away match that isn’t too far, he does his best to come and watch.”

Meijer has been with DWS for virtually all of his 42 years. “My dad worked at the club, and I always went along with him when I was small. I started playing for real when I was eight.” He doesn’t believe there’s room for a second profes-sional club in the city any more. “It would take an awful lot of money and, in any case, Ajax are just too big. Evidently a lot of people used to go and see FC Amsterdam because they didn’t par-ticularly like Ajax, but I just don’t think there would be enough interest now. It’s a shame Haarlem went bust; they were close enough to almost be like a second Amsterdam team.”

DWS certainly don’t have the ambition to try to regain their former glory. “It would be good for our first team to get promoted a cou-ple of levels, so that our better players would be more likely to stay with the club, but that’s as far as it goes,” he says. So, for the foreseeable future, the notion of DWS as Dutch champions will have to be preserved as framed photos on the canteen walls.

Derek Brookman

Rather than being the start of a slow decline, what then followed was an achievement that no other club in the country has ever managed to match

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Above DWS celebrate their title win in 1964Left & below In their current more modest surroundings at Spieringhorn

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