In the fourth class D on Saturday, HSC – Veenhuizen was stopped after 77 minutes with a 2-2 score.
Referee Meulenbelt called it a day after yet another upset. Chairman Kees van der Leest van Veenhuizen: “Why did the referee strike? Yes, you should ask him that. It was a difficult match for the young referee. He is in a talent group, I understood. HSC had a lot of comments on the management. We reached 1-1 thanks to a penalty from Brian Giezen. We fell behind again and then we got another penalty. HSC also received a red card for that penalty due to hard work. There was a lot of fuss, HSC did not agree. After a cooling-off period of ten minutes, Giezen took advantage of the penalty: 2-2. Then there was a lot of whining again when we got a free kick. The referee then stopped permanently.”
Did you understand the decision? “It was not illogical. Now we have to go to Hoogezand again for 13 minutes plus four extra before injury time.”
Hans Nijland: ‘Is Veenhuizen blaming us? ‘
Hans Nijland, former director of FC Groningen, was not present, because the chairman of HSC is on holiday in the Canary Islands. He had of course been informed of what had happened and also had an opinion about what had happened to my team: “You have to be self-critical. It was a tough match, we were at the bottom, Veenhuizen at the top. Does Veenhuizen blame HSC? Well, that’s on them. I won’t go into that. Who did you speak to?”
‘The referee was too young and inexperienced’
After the dismissal of Henk Veenhof, HSC has a new trainer. That is Johan Rieks, Kwiek’s former coach. Rieks about the strike: “It goes both ways. It was certainly not just us. We were better and Veenhuizen had a hard time with that, because we are at the bottom. The referee was too young and inexperienced. I heard that he also left the field under police escort at a match in Friesland last week. An experienced referee had kept things under control. There was confused whistling.
We conceded two penalties and Julian Zwarts received a red card for the second. That was also incorrect. The referee then imposed a cooling-off period and I had my assistant go to the meeting because I wanted to stay with the team. Meulenbelt said that it was indeed offside at first, but that the violation was so serious that he wanted to give a red card and a penalty. After that it got out of hand. Our goalkeeper received a kick and he also went through quite a bit. The referee was very nervous. It was unnecessary.”
‘I played with Seedorf and Kluivert at the Dutch Juniors’
Rieks likes it well at HSC: “I lived in Utrecht for a while and worked at Elinkwijk with many former professionals in the training there. In the distant past I also played for FC Groningen and for the Dutch Juniors with Patrick Kluivert and Clarence Seedorf, among others. We’ll see how this goes.”
For the time being, HS’88 seems to be the winner of the weekend, because due to Veenhuizen’s provisional loss of points, Mo Mohamed’s team is at the top.