The supporters of NAC are ashamed that a small part of their own supporters seriously misbehaved during the game against ADO Den Haag last Saturday. The chorus ‘Cancer The Hague’ could be heard from the NAC audience. The outbox was also daubed with the same text. Several groups of NAC fans are now going to collect money together for the fight against cancer.
It was a bizarre spectacle on Saturday afternoon in The Hague. Before the game, the NAC supporters put up a large banner out of compassion for the player Ralf Seuntjens, who left in March. He was diagnosed with a tumor last week. The canvas, attached to the fence, read: ‘Ralf = NOAD (Never Give Up Always Persevere). Your fight is our fight.’
Not much later this beautiful gesture was flushed down the toilet. ‘Cancer The Hague, cancer The Hague’, a man or forty vomited briefly but clearly audibly. At that moment they were standing diagonally behind the said banner.
The other (450) accompanying supporters listened to it in disbelief. Some of them tried in vain to sing over it. At NAC, they are proud of the fact that extremely hurtful or racist chants are rarely used en masse.
“This is not my NAC and I don’t want to be associated with this.”
It is therefore incomprehensible to NAC fan Thijs Kroezen what happened in The Hague. The chairman of supporters group B-Side Rats has already overcome cancer nine times, was present at the game and had tears in his eyes.
“It made me genuinely sad,” Kroezen still says with disbelief about the chant. “It hit me hard. This is not my NAC and I don’t want to be associated with it. Normally you might keep this quiet, but it’s too big a subject for me not to do something with it.”
“We are going to swim in the girth to raise money for charity.”
And so Thijs got to work. Together with various (supporter) groups within NAC, he devised an action to turn the negative feeling into something positive.
“We are registering as a team for Swim to Fight Cancer, a swimming trip on September 11 in the Bredase Singels with the aim of raising money for cancer research. We hope that many supporters will participate and with NAC we will set up all kinds of actions to raise as much money as possible.”
“With the swim we want to distance ourselves from the expressions and commit ourselves in a positive way for a good cause,” continues the NAC supporter. “To show that this is not the NAC we stand for or what we want to be. I hope that people understand this thanks to our action.”
“I think everyone is so shocked that it won’t happen again.”
NAC is investigating the events in The Hague. Thijs Kroezen assumes an incident for the time being. “It was stupid and I think everyone is so shocked that it doesn’t happen anymore. Otherwise I hope for the corrective capacity of the rest of the public.”
Those who want to participate in the action can here click. If you want to dive into the singel, you can send an e-mail with the subject ‘I’m going into the Singel with NAC’.
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