Tomorrow the Castricum football club Vitesse will be celebrating its centenary. Gé de Wit (83) has been part of the club’s rich history for almost his entire life. For decades he was team leader of a total of ‘between 2,000 and 3,000 football players’ and he even met his wife there. “The club has a very special place in my heart,” he tells NH Nieuws.
“My love for Vitesse started when I was six or seven years old,” Gé recalls. “My father always went to look at the first, then still on the Oude Haarlemmerweg. As a little boy I was allowed to walk with him to football. That was very beautiful.”
He has never played football there himself: “I’m not good at it and I don’t know much about the game technically,” says Gé. He especially enjoyed watching and interacting with the players. “During a beer in the local pub I was once asked if I wanted to be a team leader. I ended up doing that for thirty years.”
“I was like a second father to several boys”
Guiding teams of boys from 16 to 19 years old was what he liked the most. “That was the best age. You can talk, consult and drink a beer with them.” And if anything happened – on the field or in the boys’ lives – Gé was there for them. “I was like a second father to several boys.”
From church to football
Vitesse was originally a Catholic football club, where several professional players discovered their passion for football. In the sixties and seventies, ‘the boys’ were not allowed to play before 12 noon on Sundays.
“They first had to go to church at 10:00, then to the club,” says Gé with a laugh. “Sometimes it happened that we had to finish – a big city like Amsterdam was less interested in church times. Then we had to ask permission from the pastor or chaplain.”
“I met my wife at the club: she on one side of the bar, me on the other”
Did they not give permission? “Then it didn’t happen. That is of course no longer the case,” says Gé. “Sometimes it was allowed, but then the boys – that team of mine – had to go to church on Saturday evening.”
‘More than forty years ago’, de Castricummer met his wife at the club. “She was behind the bar, I was on the other side. You know it. Every Thursday after training she helped behind the tap. She did that for 28 years. And fast that she was – for thirty beers she turned her hand not about.”
Text continues below the photo
anniversary book
After his time as team leader, Gé has been vice-chairman and chairman. “But I thought the latter was a bit less. Then you get the whole mess of the association, from big to small. A parent called me on Saturday or Sunday morning with: ‘My son plays in D9, but I think it should be in D2.’ That wasn’t my job at all, but it happened.”
“Entire generations have walked around at Vitesse”
For the past two years, Gé has been involved in putting together an anniversary book. The book was initially supposed to be about 300 pages thick, but ‘because there is so much to tell’ it ended up being almost double. “Very special to put that together”, says the loyal Vitesse fan. “In such a review you can see that whole generations have walked around at Vitesse.”
The first book was handed over to Castricummer Guus Vermorken last week, who will turn a hundred in June. “Mr Vermorken has been the second chairman and all his children – about eight – were all active at Vitesse. Just like their children and grandchildren. That is Vitesse.”
? Don’t you want to miss anything from Alkmaar and surroundings?
Seen a typo? Let us know at [email protected]