‘The Godfather of Feyenoord’ – NRC

Every member of the Barzilaij family grew up with the stories. How Jacques Barzilaij started as a merchant in Katendrecht in the early 20th century with 13 cents and quickly grew into an international businessman. How he then built houses for the dock workers as a patron and saved amateur football club Feyenoord from destruction in 1917. The less flourishing stories were covered up.

Around 1900 you set up a football club with some friends if someone had a ball. You gave your club a winged name, planted some posts on the meadow and confronted other neighborhoods in the city. Often those associations were dissolved again as soon as the ball was leaking.

In the spring of 1917, the curtain fell for Feyenoord – then still called Feijenoord. The First World War had wreaked havoc in Europe and also caused food shortages in the neutral Netherlands. The field on Afrikaanderplein was plowed into allotments.

Wooden bleachers

Then ‘Uncle Sjaak’ Barzilaij (1876-1957) jumps into the breach. He had a large site on the Kromme Zandweg and offers Feyenoord a new start. He built a club house and the first red-white-painted wooden stands – the proto-Kuip – and founded the NV Sportterrein Feyenoord, of which he will be stadium director until 1927. From then on, Uncle Sjaak was nicknamed ‘The Lion of Charlois’.

The slogan ‘No words but deeds’ was tailor-made for him, as appears from the mouth of Jaap Barendregt, who took care of the playing field for years from 1917 with his father Ingen. In 1969, Jaap told Feyenoord house writer Phida Wolff how his father’s appointment had come about. „Sjaak Barzilaij, a shrewd businessman, came to my father one day and said: ‘Ingen, I am going to make a football field on Kromme Zandweg’. My father said, ‘Have you gone completely mad? Do you think a dog is coming to watch football in that swamp?’ Barzilaij said to keep his big mouth shut, that no one could talk him out of it, that he had faced hotter fires. And sure enough, six months after that conversation, the football field was ready.”

Until his death, my great-grandfather will be thanked by the Feyenoord board for the ‘upgrade’ of the club in South. From the Memorial book of Feyenoord (1933): „Financially, especially in the years that were so difficult for us, we had the greatest possible support from him (Barzilaij). He has forgiven our debts many times. If he has benefited financially from the facility later in the better years, it has been nothing more than a reward for the life chance he gave our club. For he could not possibly expect such a reward in advance, the circumstances in 1917 were too uncertain for that.”

In the summer of 1922 – Ome Sjaak will be director of the Feyenoord fields for five years – things come to light that make the newspapers full. Uncle Sjaak is said to be involved in an issue surrounding a sunken ship off the English coast, according to the Economic Investigation Department. He denies, but is nevertheless sentenced to three years in prison, in Scheveningen. The question is whether he was framed.

When he is released early after more than six months, he seems to be looking for rehabilitation. He is not only expanding his trade considerably, but also the Feyenoord accommodation to 12,000 places. A few months later, Feyenoord is national champion.

Before his book to be released in early 2023 Uncle Sjaak Barzilaij – Godfather of Feyenoord interviewed Michael Barzilaij relatives and read books, documents and other archival material about the history of Feyenoord. He suspects that there are more stories about his great-grandfather among Rotterdammers. If that is the case, he would like to get in touch: [email protected]