VEV’67 won the Leekster Football Gala for the second time in a row, both for men and women. And so there was also a double victory in the Van den Berg household: Gerhard won, and so did his wife Grytsje.
They live exactly 300 meters from the Oostindië sports park, the home base of VEV’67, with their children Tess (4) and Matteo (2). They are still a bit too young for the Gala, so the yellow-black Saturday club from Leek was grateful to the babysitter of Gerhard (33) and Grytsje (30). Because without both Van den Bergen the title in both tournaments would have been a lot less likely.
Booster
Grytsje, who won the national indoor football cup and the Supercup with Nieuw Roden in 2018, was again of great value to VEV’67 as a driving force and director. In the final against Winsum, the same final from last year, the Leekster women easily won 3-0. “It may have looked simple,” Van den Berg, who was born as Jongsma, made a comment immediately afterwards. “But Winsum plays two classes higher than us. So it wasn’t that easy. But it is true that we did not concede many chances, we kept them away from our goal.”
Grytsje, who also celebrated many triumphs as a player in the Dutch beach soccer team – for example, she was voted best player at the European Championships in 2017, where she won bronze with the Dutch team – married Gerhard in 2015. The two had met a few years earlier in the pub in Drachten, where she lived nearby (Grytsje is from Oerterp) and where he played football at the time, at Drachtster Boys.
Eleventh season
Gerhard is now in his eleventh consecutive season at VEV’67, the club where he joined at the age of 17. e debuted in the first. Last season, the second division team also won the title at the Leekster Gala, and Van den Berg was also there. Then in a thrilling final against Marum.
This time the two teams met each other in the semi-finals. So that became the battle between Marum striker Delano Dussel, son of Leekster Eagles icon Jeroen Dussel, and Stan van der Wal, who also grew up with Leekster Eagles, and currently plays for Hovocubo, which lost the national indoor football championship to Eindhoven last season. to leave.
Stan van der Wal best player
Dussel tried, but Van der Wal won the battle. It was not without reason that he was ultimately crowned the tournament’s most valuable player. In that semi-final against Marum, van der Wal showed why after just over four minutes. With a nice move he misled the Marum defense, after which he was released, was able to approach goalkeeper Fabian Reitsma’s goal and serve Menco Renkema, who shot in 1-0. It was the decisive goal.
In the other semi-final, another Renkema, Rick, became the big hero. Rick plays for Roden, which faced a seemingly hopeless 2-0 deficit in a Rôner match against ONR. Hendrik Rozema made it 1-0 early on for ONR, after which Janco de Boer made it 2-0.
Rick Renkema from hero to schlemiel
Roden came back into the match after 14 minutes via a goal from Rik van Dijk, but there seemed to be insufficient time to create a surprise. The music already accompanied the last minute of play when Renkema suddenly appeared in front of goalkeeper Duncan Kloosterman like a jack of all trades and beautifully scored the 2-2 after a cross from Oliver van der Tuin.
In the same minute, Renkema got it on his hips again: with his left, after an excellent action, he hit hard: 3-2 and the final for Roden. “No idea where I got it from,” Renkema was surprised about the unexpected final place for his team.
There was no exciting final
Less than an hour later, the same Renkema felt like a schmuck. He missed the last penalty in the decisive penalty shootout for Roden, after which VEV’67 could cheer. No goals were scored in the regular playing time of 25 minutes. Both teams wanted to, but also feared each other, so the handbrake was put on and a thrilling final did not occur.
But after Renkema’s missed penalty, VEV’67 could cheer. It was the third consecutive tournament victory for the Leeksters, who also won in 2023 and 2020 – there was no Gala in 2021 and 2022 due to corona. VEV’67 was also the best in 2015 and 2018.
‘Maybe the babysitter can spare a few extra hours’
And so it was also a party at the Van den Bergen. “I told Gerhard,” said Grytsje, “don’t give up. Well, he didn’t do that.” Gerhard already wanted to call the babysitter. “Maybe he can spend a few extra hours, so we can party for a while.”