Has your football viewing schedule, anywhere in the world, taken you to an unexpected and enchanting place? That was the scenario that played out for me whilst in the Netherlands, where the focus had been on getting to an FC Twente game.
That fixture had landed on a Saturday evening, giving me the Sunday slot for anything nearby. PEC Zwolle v Feyenoord immediately stood out. It would also allow me to see all three Rotterdam clubs over a weekend, and with Zwolle just an hour from my Enschede base, it landed perfectly.
I had done no research on Zwolle before arriving, preferring to let it entertain me as I went. Once I stepped off the train and started a gentle amble into town, I immediately got a sense that this was no ordinary place. My goodness, the lavish hotels I walked by set the scene, and then the canals appeared, complete with dripping overhang trees and carefully coiffeured bushes and flowers. This was a tourist town.
At Inverness, we sing ‘we’ve got a bridge and a castle’. Not much of a boast, considering the castle is the local courthouse! The PEC fans can claim a real castle, the sort with high sided parapets that are screaming out for coconut clopping, with acted out horse movements, to re-enact the iconic Holy Grail ‘Castle’ encounters, ‘I blow my nose at you’ etc always comes to mind when I see such a castle!
With a population of 130,000, Zwolle isn’t huge, but it is almost immaculate. It is the capital of Overijssel area in the northeast of the country. This is even more a bike city than Enschede, the silent transportation that keeps you on your toes should you inadvertently stray from the miniscule allotted area for walking! Now I appreciate the bike is good for the planet too, but when pavements run out and ‘technically’ sections are only for bikes, in my book it’s bordering on preposterous, and I keep going!
The Bishop of Utrecht very kindly granted Zwolle city status back in 1230, and soon after, well sixty odd years, but hey, what’s that in the lifespan of the earth, they had signed up for the Hanseatic League. These prosperous trading boys of old set Zwolle on course to the fine upstanding city it is today. These canals come in handy, with trade along and out to the big bad world via Rotterdam, which was how they could participate.
I am sure the Blauwvingers (blue fingers) as the Zwollese are known are mighty proud of their city, and so they should be. This city is a gem. The Blue fingers nickname has an amusing tale attached. In 1862, the St Michael’s church tower collapsed. Zwolle didn’t have the money to immediately rebuild, so put the church bells up for sale at a lofty price! Local town Kampen decided they needed them, but upon discovering their goods were damaged, and Zwolle wouldn’t take them back, decided to pay by the smallest copper coin demonination possible. The story being, Zwolle fingers turned blue counting these endless coins!
One more remarkable aspect of Zwolle history worthy of telling is that come the end of WWII, one man, and one man alone liberated the city?! I suspect the Germans were well in retreat, but 60 years on, a statue of Leo Major, a French Canadian, was inaugurated by way of honouring him. The name is very similar to a certain Bionic Man of yesteryear TV!
A Shetlander will also feel remarkably at home in Zwolle! They share the same flag. But unlike Orkney, who had to alter its flag because of an Irish county objecting, the altogether more laidback Dutch might be missing a trick by not cashing in on a morsel of nordic brotherhood here.
The centre of modern day Zwolle is teaming in classic Dutch and Hanseatic architecture. You can take a boat out and enjoy the city from the water, or you can choose from the many street cafe and restaurants, what you want to eat and drink. It is a busy city on the weekend, with many visitors, perhaps mostly Dutch, but upon reading this article, maybe Zwolle will have more thinking of heading it that direction. It is a chilled out wonder of a place. Easily reached for a mere day trip if that is all you wish to afford it from a plethora on places in the Netherlands.
Now, are you sitting comfortably? I will just once give you the full name of the Zwolle club, it’s a beauty! Prins Hendrik Ende Nimmer Combinatie Zwolle! Or PEC Zwolle for short. If anyone should start up a ‘give me a P, give me an r’ chant, be sure not to join in!
PEC are in the clubs 23rd season in the Eredivisie during their near 115-year existence, albeit bankruptcy exists on the CV. Having reached the Dutch Cup final twice and lost, they finally put that statistic to bed, lifting the 2014 edition. They won the Cup that year in emphatic style, thrashing Ajax 5-1. And as if to rub salt into any wound, they beat them again to win the Super Cup, just 1-0 this time. These trophies remain the clubs sole major honours to date, but the Cup success brought European football to Zwolle for the first ever time. They would draw 1-1 with Sparta Prague in the Europa League Play Off Round at home but lose 1-3 away, and their involvement was over. These were the pre Conference League drop-down scenario days.
A sixth place finish the season after is their highest league placing, and came with another Cup Final loss.
The blue fingers nickname extents to the football club, whose club colours are a lighter shade of blue than the hoops of QPR or Morton, or indeed De Graafschap, Pro Patria or MSV Duisburg, but a natty number it is. I hankered over the notion of adding this fine shirt to my collection, only to discover that, even though this was the first home game of the season, it was sold out already! Curiously, the club shop is too small to open on match day, preferring that local sponsors, a football retailer from the city and elsewhere, to run a pop-up caravan. They were selling limited nick nacks, with the altogether more ordinary second and third kits not exactly flying off the coathangers.
Mac3Park as the PEC stadium is known, is a relatively long running sponsorship deal with a certain brand of burgers. It is one of these, just on the edge of town stadia where every external window or doorway is a business or a shop. I am sure it brings in needed revenues, but it’s all pretty bland.
Inside the 14,000 capacity stadium, it is all fine. No seat or standing area view (behind one goal and visiting corner) will be restricted. This ground has been home since 2009, when an underwhelming 0-0 with MVV Maastricht opened the venue. Curiously, when I arrived at the stadium, it was Maastricht that came to mind, with very similar set-ups.
It is a capacity that suits a place like Zwolle, and it is very well kept too. I didn’t see one piece of graffiti, nor a football sticker that some like to leave wherever they go. It’s tidy and as new looking as the day it opened. In a nutshell, it kind of encapsulates Zwolle. These are proud people, and they look after what they have.
Feyenoord were in town, a very big draw. It transpires their is some sort of friendship or at least mutual respect between the two, with a small passage of acknowledgement and applause passing between the beer supping fans of both clubs during play. Tickets were potentially a no go though for anyone from outside Zwolle. They doubtlessly were not wishing for Rotterdam sympathisers to take home area seats, which is totally understandable. This is where I lucked in, as my fellow journalistic chum Joris had a friend from Zwolle; handily a season ticket holder. Courtesy of this chaps dad, also a season ticket holder, I was able to procure a brief. Dutch tickets, like Italy, carry a name, but they never check. If the barcode goes beep on entry, you are in.
On a muggy warm afternoon, the pre-match beer and atmosphere building were very enjoyable. There is, however, an old adage, I am sure one barked out in the PEC dressing room. When you are playing a big side, keep it tight, and don’t let them score early. Of course, they hadn’t got that memo, and less than four minutes in a rasping shot, put Feyenoord in front.
PEC huffed and puffed, and while they created some half chances, they couldn’t knock the door down. Feyenoord, doubtless aided by the early goal bristled with swagger. They are a tall team, with an elegant, languid playing style that will get rumbled when they come up against a “let’s get stuck in” side, but PEC maybe gave them too much respect.
Whether at half time the coach re-iterated the notion of keep it tight, again is uncertain, but conceding, not one, but two soft goals in the opening five minutes was not in the plan I am sure.
What struck me at this juncture was just how accepting of the situation all around me were. It remained suitably passive and lacking an expletive or a fire drill exit either, as number four, then five were almost embarrassingly tapped home. Perhaps such a hiding versus Go Ahead Eagles Deventer wouldn’t have been so well accepted, after all these boys are PEC’s rivals. I was told by Joris that I should avoid red and yellow colours in Zwolle. A good shout my man, as my considerable Catanzaro and Orkney shirt collection remained resolutely wardrobe bound.
The Zwolle fans did have something to cheer near the end, very near the end, when they lashed the goal of the game into the top right-hand corner. A mere consolation, but a first goal of the season. It was important to open their plus account even if during a heavy defeat. It was doubtlessly a chastening experience for the PEC players and fans alike, but they didn’t seem unduly preturbed. I liked this clubs fans.
PEC will surely play better and find their Eredivisie feet once more. They only way is up after this defeat.
Getting There
As you would expect of the Netherlands, a stroll to the stadium here is as flat as the proverbial pancake. It ticks lots of boxes, canals to cross, bridges aplenty, even a windmill sighted near the ground, by which juncture you will have clocked the floodlights that Subbuteo would be proud of! It is about 2.5 kilometres from the centre and three from the railway station. Every step along well appointed and clean streets. Many a town or city could take a leaf out of the Zwolle playbook. I loved it.
Football Adventures with James Rendall 