I’m not what you would call a proper football fan. I don’t go to games, don’t watch them on telly, don’t turn to the sports section first when reading a newspaper. I’m not a football hater though; I quite understand why people like it, even if I usually don’t bother with it.
There’s one exception to my football agnosticism; which is when Holland is playing in an international tournament,like they are doing at the moment in Euro2004. There’s something magical to a tournament like that, something that just isn’t there for me in ordinary competitons. Maybe it’s because there’s both less and more at stake in these games. It’s playing for the honour of your country and your team, rather than for your bank account and your club’s shareholders.
And every time I actually watch a football game I’m surprised again by how addictive these can be. The game last night was a case in point: one of the best games I’ve seen Holland play, even if we still lost 3-2 from the Czech Republic, who were playing quite good themselves. Neither side gave up, with both sides attacking from the first to the last minute, having many more chances to score than there were goals. It was also an exercise in frustration, as the defeat of our team was at least partially to blame on the referee. First, he didn’t award us a penalty we should’ve had, after Ruud van Nistelrooij was held in a bearhug by a Czech defender in the penalty area. And then he compounded his error, by awarding John Heitinga a second yellow card for a relatively minor foul, which left us with ten man and made it easy for the Czech to score their third goal. All the while, there were some brilliant chances for us, all of which just missed or were just saved by the Czech keeper or just hit the goal post… If not for that bloody referee, we could’ve won and we would be through to the next round by now. Thanks to him, we now have to beat Latvia AND trust the Czechs to beat Germany…
Anyway, I didn’t just want to rant about last night’s game. There’s a larger point I’d like to make. If you know the Dutch, you will probably know that we aren’t a very nationalistic or patriotic nation, except when it comes to sport and especially football, when entire neighbourhoods (including my own) are dressed in orange, the traditional colour of the Dutch team. Whenever there is any international sporting event in which there are Dutch competitors, it is not hard to spot their fans: just look for the people dressed in orange, banging drums and making noise.
But this isn’t patriotism in the same way that English supporters, dressed up in red and white and flying English flags is. Orange is not a symbol of the country of the Netherlands; it’s originally a symbol of the House of Oranje-Nassau, long since co-opted by the Dutch people. Which means there isn’t the same kind of double edge to the patriotism that you have elsewhere: because it doesn’t represent the country, it can’t be appropriated by nationalists. Nor is it possible at this point for racists to co-opt it: just look at the team we are supporting in Euro2004…
The orange fans are just an extreme case of a larger trend in Europe: a redefinition of patriotism into something far more inclusive and multicultural. Take the English flag for example: for years this was a symbol for racists and other meatheads; this year it has been taken back from them to such an extent even Asian England supporters have no problems in flying it, as I’ve seen mentioned several times. I think this sort of relaxed, quiet pride in not so much your country as your fellow country folk is quite an improvement, don’t you?