Sport is regularly applauded for how beautiful it is. But sports can also be very sad. At the beginning of August, football player Donny van Iperen from Sint-Pancras suffered serious brain damage in a collision during a football match. As a sports reporter, I have been mainly concerned with sporting matters in recent years, but how do you approach this?
It all happens in Moldova, where Van Iperen recently started playing for FC Zimbru. In only his second game for the club disaster strikes. Sometimes the former Telstar player was wild in his duels, but the collision as in the match against Dinamo Auto you see in every match. At first glance you think ‘that’s not too bad’, but it soon becomes clear that things are very wrong.
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The footballer will be hospitalized in Chisinau. His family quickly catches the plane and despite the good intentions of the people there, it is quite a shock for them.
Contact search
I try to get in touch with the Van Iperen family. I’m unsure how to handle this. On the one hand, the family members now have something else on their mind, but on the other hand, this is also part of my job.
“I had the feeling that we were going back to the 1970s. They opened an attic window for air circulation”
The first days there is no contact with the family. Until I get an app from his brother Joey in the evening. The family deliberately seeks out the media to bring Donny to the Netherlands. Because the footballer is not properly insured, no hospital in the Netherlands wants to take him in for the time being. After media coverage can Donny be admitted?
“Maybe the doctors are good there, but I felt like we were going back to the seventies. They opened an attic window for air circulation. Donny was lying there in a room with other people,” says Joey. On a blog of sister Kiky you can read the developments about Donny. It is confronting to read. The footballer does not communicate or walk.
Bizarre goal
My thoughts meanwhile wander to a bizarre goal that Van Iperen once made. In a Telstar home match against Fortuna Sittard, the defender remains sneaky hanging behind the keeper of the Limburgers. He throws the ball on the ground for a kick forward and then Van Iperen looms up from behind. He takes the ball and taps it in. Donny cheers and cries out. What a bizarre goal. What a stark contrast to its current state.
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In recent years I have had regular contact with Donny. That was sometimes for my work at NH Sport after a Telstar match. But sometimes not. His mother died a few years ago and the footballer had a hard time with that. Because my father also passed away, we had something in common and we talked about the death of our loved ones.
At the end of July he texted me to tell me that he after two seasons the Greek AE Karaiskakis Artas was exchanged for the Moldavian FC Zimbru. I joked that it would be nice if he got paid. “I checked with FIFA. After Sheriff, it is the second club in the country. Everything is well organized here. It is worse in Greece,” Van Iperen countered.
FC Grandstand
He also thought it was very funny that I recently called Telstar FC Grandstand because there are quite a few players from that real estate agency playing football in Velsen-Zuid. He said that he had just broken with the office and had arranged this step to FC Zimbru himself.
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The family must therefore make a considerable effort to bring the footballer to the Netherlands. Eventually he is admitted to the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam. The family drives daily from North Holland to Rotterdam. It is terribly hard for them to see how Donny is doing. These are very tough weeks, but he will speak at the end of August his first words from.
“We know how strong Donny is and how hard he can fight, he will win this eventually”
“We hope that this heralds the next phase of recovery and will continue to focus on rehabilitation. We know how strong Donny is and how hard he can fight, he will eventually overcome this”, brother Joey responds at the beginning of September.
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In October, Van Iperen is transferred to the Heliomare rehabilitation center in Wijk aan Zee. There the footballer continues to work on his recovery. After his first words, he now also moves his first steps. At the end of November I will visit Joey. At the kitchen table in Sint Pancras, he talks about his brother’s recovery. This is literally and figuratively step by step.
We don’t just talk about Donny, we also talk about our families, work, hobbies and the World Cup. The global football tournament doesn’t interest either of us. For Joey because it is too confrontational, for me because FIFA has become a commercial and corrupt monster.
America
Fortunately, he still sees progress with his brother. Donny herself wants it all to go much faster. It frustrates him that things are moving slowly. As it looks now, he will go to America in February. There they have special treatment for his brain injury and he will take the next step in his recovery.
At the end of December I have direct contact with Donny for the first time. I send him a message. But what do you send to someone who is in a rehabilitation center. In the end, just the standard “How are you?”. A few hours later I get a voice message back. I don’t know what to expect, but in a 50 second message he tells me how he’s doing. I text him back and a moment later he does the same. I think it’s super clever how Donny communicates with me and he exceeds my expectations quite a bit.
Donny keep fighting and don’t give up! In just a few months you have taken giant steps. It may not feel that way to you, but trust me it really is.
Thomas Brood
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