Jurryt van de Vooren can be found as a sports historian in the City Archives almost every week. Normally he dives into the archives for almost everything that has to do with Dutch sports history, but for four months he focused in particular on one subject: the history of Ajax in Amsterdam.
Van de Vooren mainly made use of archive documents that are not from Ajax itself. Such as a letter from 1971 mayor Ivo Samkalden, who decided that the first Ajax-Honinging ever had to take place on Museumplein. He found a folk festival on Dam Square because there would be too few output roads.
There is not only paperwork to see, but also recognizable Densenkens, such as a captain’s band from 2002 (with the well -known Andreas crosses), a piece of fabric that a supporter of the Cruijff shirt jerked out after the champion match in 1966 or the cigarette box of John Kirwan, who became the very first trainer of Ajax in 1910.
Ajax logo
But the most special finds one of his discoveries during the research: a munst piece with that now known Ajax head. It is about the original design of what would only be the Ajax logo four years later, although this coin was not made with that idea. The designer is an Austrian artist Eduard Huttl (1893-1938), who was a fan of classical Greek art. It is unclear whether Ajax ordered him to make the image, or whether Hüttl came with it itself.
What we do know is that the design would later become the world -famous face of Ajax. After it was replaced by a modern variant in the 90s, supporters groups took action for 20 years to return the original design.