With the disbanding of THB (The Haarlem Boys) the smallest folk club will disappear from the Spaarnestad. The end does not come unexpectedly. THB had no future with one more team. Two days before the 109th anniversary, the club will breathe its last on Saturday with the match against FC Rijnstreek.
It briefly occurred to chairman Piet van der Velden to serve coffee and cake on Saturday at Sportpark Eindenhout, but he will ultimately not do it. “Because no one is buried. But it is sad.”
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He saw it coming and that eases the pain. Before corona, the club had four teams. Two of them remained after the crisis. When another team dropped out this season, the decision was made quickly during the last members’ meeting.
Sjaak van Gennip, 65 years old and active in the most diverse functions at the club of green and white, had written something for the occasion that he would read that evening. But the thump of the announced death felt so heavy that the A4 never left his inside pocket. “I went home, had a few beers against the sadness and fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up the next morning, I realized that the end was definitely coming.”
Leidsebuurt
Van Gennip (76) is someone you couldn’t ignore at THB (fifth class). He was literally the member with all the keys in his pocket. That offered him the pleasure and status that in turn benefited the club. In earlier years such a relationship was not mentioned, but nowadays it is called a win-win situation. Well, before, don’t talk to him about it. In the seventies, the club had ten senior teams, mainly with men from the Leidsebuurt, the place where the club started more than a century ago.
Canteen
THB has always had many carpenters and plumbers among its members, which came in handy when a canteen had to be built at the Wagenweg complex in the early 1970s. “We did that together, without outside help,” says Van Gennip. “If you ask me for a highlight from all those years, that’s it.”
Van Gennip kicks off the last match of THB
Clubman Sjaak van Gennip has the honor of kicking off THB’s last game on Saturday afternoon. Van Gennip gets the ball rolling for the duel with FC Rijnstreek. The match at Sportpark Eindenhout starts at 2.30 pm.
The new canteen was the symbol of THB’s self-reliance. “We didn’t need anyone,” says Van der Velden. “We always solved everything ourselves. For example, the training sessions were given by fathers. You sometimes hear that we should not have wanted to solve everything ourselves. But can you take that as a mistake?”
Dark forest
In any case, the image of an introverted club arose, partly caused by its location. If you want to go to THB, you always have to go through the Vogelbos. Van der Velden: “A beautiful piece of nature, but parents don’t like to let their children cycle there in the dark. And if Dad thinks it’s important to maintain a network, the choice for Koninklijke HFC or Alliance’22 is an obvious choice.”
“You used to have to kick the players out of the canteen, nowadays you’re happy if one comes in for a coke”
For all these reasons, THB’s last years can be described as the chronicle of a death foretold. Or, to quote Sjaak van Gennip: “You saw it getting less and less. Many members have left or died. What came back were not real THB people. In the only team we still have, mainly boys are leaving Hoofddorp. The band is missing. In the past you had to kick the THB players out of the canteen late at night. Nowadays you are happy if one of them comes to drink a coke.”
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How will he spend his time now? “Clubs in the area have asked to do something with them. But I’m not going to do that. I’ll be there every now and then along the line, but I don’t want to make any more commitments. I’ve found a nice billiard club where I can play every evening. I think I will find my foot there again.”