Where Volendam competes for the national handball title, the season is over for Aalsmeer. The reigning national champion missed the final of the play-offs by a hair and is already aiming for next season. “Compliments to Volendam.”
“It is not very surprising that we are not in the final,” says Mike van der Laarse. The chairman of Aalsmeer saw that his club had been missing the holy fire all season. “If you are the best in the Netherlands for four years, it may happen that it is sometimes less. The hunger then decreases somewhat and that is quite logical.”
Bert Builder
That should be better next season and Aalsmeer will do that without Bert Bouwer. The 71-year-old successful coach is retiring, but he will be retained for the club, Van der Laarse tells NH Sport. “He will supervise the youth trainers. In addition, he will fill in for the first team when the new coach Wai Wong has to go on the road with the national team.” In addition to being head coach at Aalsmeer, Wong is also an assistant at the Dutch handball team.
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Newest reinforcement for Aalsmeer is Ruud Neeft. The 45-year-old former player will assist Wong next season. The selection of Aalsmeer was told that last night. Van der Laarse: “Ruud has a real Aalsmeer heart, has a lot of experience and is disgustingly fanatical. We are very happy with him, because Ruud was also at the top of our list. What is also nice is that Ruud played together with the batch of Samir Benghanem, Tim Bottinga and Jimmy Castien.”
Talents
After the summer, the selection of Aalsmeer will look a bit different. This is how Jeffrey Boomhouwer, Rob Jansen and Max de Maat stopped. “We are working on reinforcements,” said Van der Laarse. “But we also expect players from the youth to move on. That is also our policy, because we invest a lot of time and energy in our youth academy. in our first team.”
This week Aalsmeer is still training in De Bloemhof and then it is summer break. On August 1, Wong’s players will return to the sports hall to begin preparations for the new season.