One of Telstar’s most famous supporters should of course not be missing from this survey: former chairman Pieter de Waard. He himself was too nervous to watch before the matches, but since he retired after 17 years, he has fared much better. “Last season was an adventure.”
The first thing De Waard did when the name Henk Brugge came out of the hat was to look on the internet. “I have watched images of him and he seems good to me. I read about him that he was a limited footballer. It does well for me, because I was too.”
His three days at the helm of Heerenveen give De Waard confidence. “The fact that he won against AZ was absolutely fantastic. Correia was not able to do that. He also worked at Feyenoord and that is the second club close to my heart.”
‘Head coaches are generally stubborn jerks’
De Waard is happy that Brugge is now switching from assistant coach at Heerenveen to head coach at Telstar. “I always had better chemistry with assistant coaches than head coaches. Head coaches are generally stubborn jerks.”
“What also speaks for him is that he does not impose a condition that Telstar must play in the Premier League in order to train there.”
Finally, De Waard mentions another characteristic of Brugge that he is positive about. “From what I have read so far, he is a man who picks up the net. He listens to his staff and players.”
The former chairman’s advice is to listen to two Telstar mastodons. “I have had several sounding boards in the club,” he begins. “Of these, Walter de Wit remains on the board and Leo Driessen as ‘press chief’. I have always had a lot of use for those guys.”
“I assume that we will have another good year. That will probably rest heavily on his shoulder,” so it is important that Telstar supporters get behind their new trainer. “The king is dead, long live the king.”
‘Don’t grumble if he loses three times in a row’
Bruges was not at the top of Mink Verbaan’s list for potential successors to Correia. The former Telstar equipment man previously thought of Danny Schenkel, the assistant coach of Almere City. “Just like Correia, he is a child of the club.”
The appointment of Henk Brugge came as a surprise to Verbaan. “I didn’t know that new trainer at all,” he admits. “But he is here now and you have to give him the chance.”
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