There used to be luxury at the Neo’25 football club from Sprang-Capelle there was absolutely no question. For example, horse shit was everywhere on the field, thanks to the horse of the milkman. And what about the Molhopen who first had to be closed for a competition. A portrait of the oldest Saturday club in Brabant, which exists on Friday 9 May 100 years.
NEO’25 has already been at six locations in 100 years. A glimpse into history indicates how creative the members used to be to be able to play a game. Lines were chalked with a broom and the lamps were of parked cars along the field. A loft was used as a changing room. The somewhat older spectators were allowed to sit on old bars.
The turf did not ran horizontally, so you played one half up and the other playing down. A small lawn mower mowed the left and right side, but often not the middle. The players almost never came there. They played with a football that was sometimes two kilos in rainfall.
Anyone who talks to archivist Mari van Ee will hear Anekdote after Anekdote. Such as about the start of the club in 1925. In the Protestant enclave Sprang-Capelle, the faith was played on Saturday and not on Sunday, as was common in the Catholic Brabant.
NEO’25 started as a korfball club. “In the end the football branch was created. In the war the club was forbidden because of the name Netherlands and Orange. In 1945 the association was founded again and Neo’25 became a formidable opponent at the highest amateur level in the Netherlands years later.”
With the 29-year-old Thijs Kramer, the club has a young chairman. “I started here as a boy of 7 and made it to the first team for a while, although I was not a gifted football player. It is nice to be able to give something back for the club in this position. Among other things, I have one of my best friends on the board. It is a role that takes a lot of time, because it goes through all day with apps, e -mails and phone calls.
“This will be a bigger problem in the coming years.”
NEO’25 has been playing football at De Gaard sports park since 2004. Officially in Waalwijk, but for the members it remains a club from Sprang-Capelle. Thijs: “We are a village club with 565 members, there is a nice complex with an artificial grass field and luckily we have enough youth. But to make everything run, volunteers are important. We can fall back on a group of loyal volunteers, but the next ten to twenty years that will be a bigger problem with us, but also with other associations.”
Archivist Mari and club icon Erick de Roon are proud of their club. “You cannot expect volunteers that they are ready for NEO’25 day and night, although there are men and women who do. But voluntary is not without obligation, you have the lusts and the burdens. In all those years very special things have happened. It is due to all those real club people that we stand now and the club is facing a bright future.”
On Friday evening, 9 May, NEO’25 will hold a reception due to the 100th anniversary. From 7 to 14 June there is a party week with all kinds of activities.