Football is a nerd sport: There are few areas of life that are so filled with useless knowledge. For example: the club colors. A few resourceful people have discovered that in the past 60 years in the Netherlands, only clubs that wear the colors red and white in their coat of arms have become: PSV Eindhoven, Feyenoord Rotterdam, AZ Alkmaar, FC Twente and, of course, Ajax Amsterdam.
Only in a year that was different: In 1964 triumphed in the Ehrendivision a club in blue and white gear. It was the great year of DWS Amsterdam, a team like a comet: shot up and quickly burned up again. Today almost nobody knows this club anymore, in the middle of the sixties he was not only number one in the city. He was even a European house number.
DWS became champion in 1964 as a newcomer, no other club has ever succeeded in the Netherlands. The following year, the team made it to the quarter-finals in the European Cup of Champions. But while the famous city rivals Ajax Amsterdam play their European Champions League quarter-final against Juventus in the evening (21 clock / live ticker SPIEGEL ONLINE, TV: DAZN), DWS must now in the lowlands of amateur football with the FC Weesp, the AFC Quick 1890 or Pankratius RKSV measure.
The club names are a story of their own
DWS, that stands for Door Wilskracht Sterk, strong by willpower. It is one of those wonderful qualifying club names that are quite common in the neighboring country. Like the PEC Zwolle, Prins Hendrik end Desespereert Nimmer Combinatie Zwolle, or still the most beautiful NAC Breda, NOAD ADVENDO Combinatie, NOAD as an abbreviation for Nooit Ophouden Altijd Doorzetten (Never stop, keep going) and ADVENDO for Aangenaam Door Vermaak En Nuttig Door Ontspanning (Pleasant by entertainment and useful by relaxation). The club names in the Netherlands are a story of their own.
Anyone visiting the idyllic Spieringhorn sports park on the western outskirts of the city must first be careful not to confuse the clubs. On the one hand plays and trains SDW Amsterdam, Sterk door Wilskracht. On the other hand, DWS, Door Wilskracht Sterk, has its grounds. And in between four hockey fields are played, in the Netherlands at least as popular as football.
In Spieringhorn, little is reminiscent of the splendor of the sixties. DWS had risen to the top league of the country under coach Lesly Talbot in 1963. The English coach had a young and ambitious squad with players who later had not only in the neighboring country reputation. Jan Jongbloed, for example, the goalkeeper of the legendary Orange Elf of 1974, or Rinus Israel, who then moved to Feyenoord and became a celebrity there. Daan Schrijvers and Dick Hollander were also national players. A year later, another young guy, Rob Rensenbrink, also later became an icon of the Oranje football. His post-shot in the 1978 World Cup final against Argentina, the Oranje probably tasted the world title, has become almost a proverb with the reporter exclamation "Rensenbrink op de Paal". Under football nerds at least.
When Michels arrived, Ajax became number one
Talbot and his team flew through the league in their first season, scoring sensationally the team finished first, ahead of PSV and ahead of Ajax in fifth. In the following season, the team once again managed the runner-up, Ajax escaped in 13th just as the descent. The footballing power relations in the city were clear. Then Rinus Michels took over at Ajax in January 1965, promoting a young, slender player named Johan Cruyff, and since then, there has been no passing at Ajax.
DWS, fused to FC Amsterdam in the early 1970s, remained in the top division for a few more years, but the glory was over. In 1978, the club descended and never returned.
"As a supplier of young players, we have worked to this day," says Remko de Jong, the current chairman. Frank Rijkaard and Ruud Gullit started working for DWS as teenagers before becoming stars, then world stars elsewhere. De Jong is proud to note that "every year we have five to ten young players making their way to professional clubs." De Jong counts the club names: Ajax, FC Groningen, FC Utrecht. If your own athletic success is rather moderate, these are the joys of a club chairman. Sometimes one or the other of the great Elf from the past still looks past. Andre Pijlman, then a defender of the team feared by the strikers, comes to every home game. He is now 76.
Even today, according to de Jong, "fans come to us again and again because of the glorious time when we were a national and even European greatness." In the Champions Cup 1964 led the way over Fenerbahce Istanbul and the Norwegian titleholder Lyn Oslo in the top eight. It was then played in the old Amsterdam Olympic Stadium, an appropriate site. Against Györ Vasas from Hungary was then, however, just with 1: 1 and 0: 1 terminal. Making it to the semifinals, where else were Liverpool, Inter Milan and Benfica Lisbon, that would have been the knighthood.
Today, Ajax can do just that, Juventus is the favorite, but jumping into the semi-final would be as important to Cruyff's heirs as DWS would have been. The blue-and-white press today for the red-white.