His competition routine is always the same. Anton Slotboom, supporter and author of five books about Sparta, starts in the supporters home. Have a beer, chat a bit about the club. Then towards the Denis Neville grandstand – just in time not to see too much, but also not too little of the warm-up. “Then you see the same faces, you have the same encounters. I have become deeply attached to it since my first time in 1989. So much has happened in my life, but this remains blissfully the same.”
Slotboom will also keep this order for the game against PEC Zwolle on Wednesday evening, although he is not as relaxed as usual when he takes seat eleven in the second row of Section 13. “Jitters”, Slotboom appends when he has to describe his feelings an hour before kick-off, while sponsors and invitees in the skyboxes are still sipping their white wine fairly carefree.
Diagonally across the street, somewhat tired of sitting in a bus for three hours, a 52-year-old Zwolle native prefers another word for his mood. Freddy Eikelboom (52), chairman of the official supporters’ association of PEC Zwolle, feels “combatant”, he types, although he is aware that his mind may have completely changed two hours later. “For others, these kinds of competitions are fun,” he said on the phone in the morning. “Not for us.”
Not just any cracker
The others are the neutral football fans. Those who can gloat carefree from behind their TV about the relegation stress that screams through Het Kasteel stadium on Wednesday. Sparta-PEC is not just a cracker in the tail of the Eredivisie, it is the relegation duel of the year. The number sixteen (Sparta) who will meet the number eighteen (PEC) in the penultimate round of play: the competition planners of the KNVB probably would not have dared hope for such a scenario when they put together the playing program a year ago. Too insane.
Yet for supporters Anton Slotboom (Sparta) and Freddy Eikelboom (PEC) it is the bitter reality. They both agreed to share their thoughts and findings via Whatsapp during the competition. The two have had a similar season. Both are also familiar with relegation.
I wouldn’t like to be in the off section right now
Anton Slotboom Sparta supporter
Eikelboom saw his club relegated from the Eredivisie three times since he first went to the stadium in 1978. Lock tree just as often. “It has even taken a bit of getting used to, we played more often in the First Division than in the Eredivisie this century,” he says. Despite this, it always comes unexpectedly. Slotboom: „We at Sparta are of standing, we were the largest and are the oldest club. It will never quite fit for us.”
For Sparta there is the most hope, this evening. Certainly if captain Adil Auassar already scores after three minutes on behalf of Sparta and will make the club staff of PEC fear for their jobs. If a club is relegated, there are layoffs – sometimes for a third of the office staff. That also creates stress.
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From the box, Eikelboom texts immediately after the goal. “Pffff. Haven’t seen a ball roll yet and he’s already in it.” Due to crowds on the road, the 650 Zwolle supporters were only just in time. “I would not like to be in the branch right now,” Slotboom writes.
PEC doesn’t even play bad. Attacking, fearless. This means that the club has already been able to catch up on the other relegation candidates in the second half of the season. Just not enough. PEC scores so hard.
Sparta has similar problems. “It all looks so fragile,” says Slotboom. Yet after twenty-four minutes he sees a flashy attack from his club, resulting in Vito van Crooij’s 2-0. If the goalscorer then runs past the branch, beer is thrown at him from all sides.
“This 2-0 comes out of nowhere,” Eikelboom applauds among the beer-throwers. “Bah and I’m covered in beer. Better drink it.”
throw fireworks
In the quiet it gets grim around him. Under the exit section, PEC supporters try to force the gates to a Sparta section where mainly families are located. “But why?” says a PEC official sitting in the main stand to his colleagues. Shaking their heads, the men see that fireworks are also being thrown on the field in the second half. The photographers sitting right below the branch are led away by stewards from Sparta.
Whatever PEC tries in the second half, the 2014 cup winner does not score. The straw that Eikelenboom would have liked to cling to is not forthcoming. PEC has been officially relegated, before the last round of Sunday.
However, he will also see his club in the First Division. Naturally. “It’s done, but we’ll be back soon”, Eikelboom appts from the PEC section, where the tears are flowing.
On the other side, Slotboom feels relieved. For a while, because despite the 2-0 victory, Sparta is still not safe. Another club is directly relegated, and with a bit of bad luck it could still be Sparta. The next thriller awaits on Sunday: Heracles out.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of May 12, 2022