 |
 |
Olympiakos Piraeus vs. Panathinaikos
Athens, Greece
Read more  |
|
 |
|
 |
Rivals, The Offbeat Guide To The 92 League Clubs, is one of the best derby books available.
Read the review |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
| NAC Breda - Willem II (1-0) |
| Eredivisie, 19 January 2008 |
| Stadium : Rat Verlegh Stadion |
| Attendance : 16.580 |
Today I saw my first 'Brabantse Derby'. I arrived at the stadium about 1,5 hours before the match. Rain was pouring down so maybe that was the reason that it was pretty quiet outside the stadium. You could enter the stadium directly from the street. A few people were waiting at the entrances that were still closed.
I got my ticket at the servicedesk. I had to pay 27,50 Euro for a seat on the long side of the pitch (Block F3). Luckily I was seated on row 19 (of 22) so I was up high and dry in the stand. I got to my seat about an hour before kick-off and most of the stadium was still empty. The B-Side was maybe 40% full and the block with away fans held a few hundred of the eventually 1200 Willem II fans. The other stands were still empty.
During warm-up the players were cheered to every time they came close to the sidelines. The Willem II players did their warming-up in front of there own fans just as the NAC players did. When the Willem II goalkeeper had to get a ball from behind his goal during warming-up he received over 20 free beers from NAC's Vak G on his head. Free beer is a good thing usually, but here it showed it was derby day!
There were some yellow smoke bombs on the B-Side when the players entered the pitch. The away fans did a good job with a lot of smoke, flares and many tricolors flags. It looked really nice. Willem II had won this one ... I guess the NAC fans had spend all their money in the cup match against Ajax 3 days before the derby (200 flares, confetti, smoke, colored shirts, etc.)
The match itself wasn't very special. The derby seems to become famous for the small number of goals being scored. During half-time I was pretty sure that this would be 0-0 again but a few minutes after the break there was an own goal of Willem II that settled the match in favor of NAC.
During the match the 15000 NAC fans had the upper hand of course when it came to singing. I heard some anti-Willem II songs that came through pretty loud at times. B-Side and Vak G made most of the atmosphere. Best thing of the day was when both blocks started singing towards each other. You can probably find a video of it when you search for 'overal waar we komen' on youtube.com.
The match ended 1-0 which lead to cheers of the NAC fans, happy to have won the bragging rights until the next derby. The players celebrated with the fans by walking round the pitch, receiving extra cheers from Vak G and B-Side.
When the pitch was empty there was a big bang on the pitch, close to the away fans. It created a lot of smoke. A pretty big bomb it was…crazy guys…
Anyway, It was my first evening match at NAC Breda ('avondje NAC' in Dutch) and I must say I enjoyed myself. It wasn’t a great atmosphere for the full 90 minutes but maybe the poor match was part of that. When the noise did came through than you could see why it's always difficult for teams to leave Breda with the 3 points.
Pictures thanks to :
http://www.bsiderats.nl
Click here for more pictures.
Report added : 20 January 2008
Report by : Jordy
|
|
 |
|
