What Lubbelinkhof will miss the most? “The chatter in the dressing room, and the third half,” he says. “That’s the nicest thing there is.”
Together with brother Ab, who died last year, and brother Marinus, Lubbelinkhof played for years in the club’s first team. “Yes, that was great,” says brother Marinus, who in the meantime gives instructions from the side. “Also with the three Nevels brothers. We already had almost half of the team complete,” he laughs. “Our father was at the founding of the club. Yes, everything at home revolved around football. Our mother kept scrapbooks. Joop lasted the longest of all of us.”
And so Aly, Lubbelinkhof’s wife in football, also rolled into it. “It was always very pleasant. We always went to the away games by bus. Yes, everything was football. That was really the case with the Lubbelinkhof family.”
Lubbelinkhof is full of anecdotes from all those years he played football for the club. In recent years he played in the fifth team. “I always started as a striker, scoring goals,” he says when he sits down after the game. “But yes, as I got older I got further and further back. In recent years I was the last man. It’s nice to keep a bit of an overview.”
A good football player, former teammate Eddy de Leeuw calls him. “Yes, Joop was a good one. We played football with him for years. But tonight we are not participating. We are no longer 18. But Joop is doing it. Good on him.”