Emmenaar Joseph Oosting, trainer of RKC Waalwijk, is the focus of a documentary that will be broadcast on ESPN on Wednesday evening. Joseph Oosting, don’t give camp, is the name of the program. Or don’t give up.
Can you describe your trainer Joseph Oosting in three words? Michiel Kramer, player of RKC Waalwijk, didn’t have to think long about it: honest, straightforward and honest. “I had to laugh a lot when Michiel came up with those answers,” says documentary maker Robbert Jacobs. ,,I said: Michiel, you are now saying exactly the same thing three times! He realized it himself at the time. Funny. But the answers he gave also illustrated very well why the striker and captain of RKC appreciates his trainer so much. He likes the fact that Oosting serves clear wine, tells it like it is.”
Jacobs (33), who lives in Utrecht, followed Oosting in the period leading up to the match RKC Waalwijk – FC Emmen, which was played at the end of January. A special duel for the 51-year-old Oosting. He grew up in Emmen, still lives there and in the past was active for years in various positions for the club of red and white. It took a while before Oosting was excited to participate in a documentary in which he would be central. ,,His proposal was to focus mainly on the RKC Waalwijk club and not on him personally. Fortunately, we managed to convince him that our approach would result in a good production. The longer we were busy, the more enthusiastic Joseph himself became.”
Through the fire
Oosting is doing well as a trainer at RKC Waalwijk. The club has a very limited budget, but maintained itself in the premier league without many problems last season. Currently, the people from Brabant are even in the left row, in a neat ninth place. Trainer Oosting is praised for the results, but even more for his working method. He has, according to people who see him every day, a great empathy. “It’s in his DNA. It’s not played, it’s sincere”, says Mo Allach, his technical director. Assistant coach Sander Duitsland: ,,I can learn something from the way he treats players. He knows how to hit them in his own way. When they are on the field, they go through fire for him.”
Oosting himself played professional football at Emmen and Veendam. He started his career at WKE, the football club co-founded by his grandfather at the Emmer trailer park. Oosting grew up at the camp, his parents Jan and Grietje still live there, as do brothers Hendrik and Berend. Jacobs went there with Oosting. The native Emmenaar shows where he crawled under the fence as a boy when he secretly wanted to play football with friends on the main field, but also tells about a police raid on the camp that made a big impression on him. ,,I was still very young, played with an orange plastic ball. The police stopped me. I didn’t know what it was about, I was very scared. Later it turned out that someone had escaped who would be here.”
To separate
Oosting’s family members speak at the camp. Mother Grietje shows photos from the past, from the time when her children played football around the car. She experienced several times that people from outside the camp treated her and other residents of the caravan camp ‘differently’. “If I went to a disco with Jan, then Jan could come in, but I could not. Jan went to a civilian school and I to a camp school. And Jan was a footballer, that was the difference. With things like this you think: ‘Damn, aren’t we all human?” Brother Hendrik: ‘I always felt that I had to prove myself to the outside world, that we had to be better than the rest.” Joseph Oosting: , “Football was a means to distinguish us, then they talked about us a bit.”
The current RKC trainer says he was given a few important rules from home. “Just act normal, then you are acting crazy enough. Hard work. Have fun in what you do. And always know where you come from”. At the sports complex of RKC Waalwijk, we see how he points out to an 18-year-old player in a personal conversation that it is not strange to help clean up after a training session. “Why don’t you do that now? Then why don’t you help those other guys? It’s not just about football. You have talent, you can play football well. But talent doesn’t mean you’re already there.”
Supports
Oosting himself knows all about it. He played professional football for years, then worked as a trainer, but was nevertheless rejected several times for the professional football trainer course. In the end it worked out. Joseph Oosting, don’t give camp, is the name of the documentary. A nod to the origin of the Emmenaar, but also a title that fits his career. Do not give up. Neither does his wife Martine. De Emmense is ill and briefly talks about it in the documentary. Joseph Oosting: ,,I try to support her as much as possible and to be there when I need to be there. But sometimes you are also powerless. She has since had surgery and is undergoing several treatments. I hope that this nasty disease goes out of her body.”
The documentary airs Wednesday night on ESPN 1 starting at 8 p.m.