Football club SV Real Sranang exists 62 years. Founded in 1960 by a number of migrants from Suriname, the club from Amsterdam has grown into more than a football club. Program maker Koen Bugter explores what makes the club so special in a four-part series. In the second episode he zooms in on a legendary match against the great Ajax.
Real Sranang, from Amsterdam-East, played against the professionals of Ajax in 1987. It was the semi-final for the cup against the second team with players like the Finnish talent Tiainen, Klaassen and Regtop. Guno Zorgvol was top scorer for Sranang and saw to his and everyone’s surprise that his team was a match for Ajax. “We started badly and fell behind 1-0 and everyone thought this will be 6-0 or 8-0. But as the game progressed, we started to play better and better football. Dynamic and technically good football.”
Emanuelson
One of the players that stood out was a player nicknamed ‘Ti-ta Wizard’. He completely lost the defense of Ajax. “His technical feats were inimitable”, former player Hendrik Comvalius knows. In any case, Real has always had great players. “The father of Urby Emanuelson, who broke through at Ajax, also played at Sranang and I also watched that with an open mouth. How a slender man could play so well.”
The ’87 match against Ajax seemed to be going in the right direction. The miracle of Amsterdam-East was abruptly interrupted by the referee. Real was leading 2-1, but the referee gave a penalty to Ajax because of dangerous play. He was the only one who saw that, which caused a huge commotion on the field and around it. Emotions ran so high that the referee saw no other option than to stop the match.
Drama
Real Sranang had beaten Ajax sportingly, but in fact it ended in a drama. “We received all the fines that the KNVB could think of, unjustified in my opinion. We had not done anything wrong and it was not a penalty. Yet people still remember this match. It was legendary what we performed against Ajax,” said a proud Careful. “In 1987 we won against the great Ajax in an unjustly stopped match.”