FC Den Haag isn't even the champion yet (gonna happen this friday ) and already the media has picked up the "oooh it's going to be a rowdy year with 34 more 'risk' games next season with Den Haag in the Eredivisie" bandwagon. That's quite a big name for a bandwagon, I know. What lead to this, was the 'trouble' caused by the Den Haag fans on the highway leading to Deventer, where the club could have become league champion if they had won (they didn't) The supporters hadn't received a lot of tickets for what could have been the championship game, so a lot of them decided to go to the city without tickets...and were stopped by the local police...they even used the only helicopter the Dutch police force has in it's property. A few traffic jams and a robbed gasoline station later (robbed by a few - 3 or 4 - Den Haag 'supporters') and you got yourself a spot on the night news discussing how dangerous next season's going to be with FC Den Haag in the top division; even though no 'violence' was used by the supporters at all, apart from maybe the robbed gasoline station, which was missing some soda and chips, which by the by was done by a few morons out of the hundreds of supporters which tried to go to Deventer. Oh well. It's not like there's not going to be more trouble next season because Den Haag is in the Eredivisie....it's just that this wasn't a good example to show it. That's all.
Oh well......the media are always focusing on the incidents. Which is why the general public thinks that the tens of thousands football supps that visit games every weekend are moronic hooligans....all of them. The idea that any home crowd of any pro club in The Netherlands is in fact a cross section (is that proper english?)of dutch society, with all the good AND the bad people among them, is something lots op people can't or won't grasp.......football fans? lock 'em away!!!!
When Feyenoord won a couple of years back they showed the riots on US tv, mainstream tv. "Soccer fans run riot in Rotterdam". Yet when the Detroit Pistons won the NBA title they rioted, looted, burned stuff and 19 people were dead. I'm not sure how many died, but the fact that people died is unbelieveable. In any case, I still laugh at FC Utrecht for putting the away fans next to the Bunnik Side. That's asking for trouble.
The speaking of 34 'risk' games is rightful. Those ADO Den Haag (which it is called FC Den Haag) supporters have their reputation for a reason. Even in the first devision, when they play against FC Den Bosch, there's police all over the place. And not just around the stadium. It wasen't quite a robbing. A large group of supporters (so not just 3/4, more like 30/40) went in and took what the wanted (against a group that large, there's nothing you can do).
Don't think it was in the 30-40 range, somebody from the ADO supporters club (or something or other) said it was around 10 people on TvWest (regional tv station) And is it me or are the letters much bigger on Internet Explorer all of a sudden? Not just on this board, but on every site I go....very fuçked up. Didn't even change anything in the settings.
The regional channel here also has a program dedicated to FC Den Haag, and today the presenter of that show went to visit the gasoline station that got robbed to give the man some flowers in name of the real Den Haag supporters. At the same time he got the owner to show his bank account on screen, so the ones who robbed the chips and the sodas could still pay for the products in anonimity. Was pretty funny.
Away games and gasstations. I could tell you stories.... But I won't Look, it's real simple. When Den Haag are back, it's a fact they'll have a group of 200-400 hoolies, very eager to rendevous with feyenoord and especially Ajax. Chances are that police will be so on top of this that nothing spectacular will happen. But stuff WILL happen. That's for sure. I welcome them with open arms. Let's hope it won't be a one-season thing.