The Football Tragic

Was Willy Brokamp missed in Germany in 1974? It seems churlish to suggest such a thing, given how thrillingly the Dutch played, not least his replacement on the left side of the attack, Rob Rensenbrink. But it is worth remembering that in the final, Rensenbrink had to go off injured. The one other left-sided attacker in the squad, the much-loved Ajax veteran Piet Keizer, perhaps made the cut for sentimental as much as footballing reasons; in his one game at the finals, against Sweden, he had been unimpressive. Rensenbrink's replacement in the Munich showpiece was René van de Kerkhof: a doughty warrior, but not an incisive attacker or finisher. Could that have been Brokamp's moment instead?

It was, in any event, not the sort of thing that a character like Willy Brokamp would have lost much sleep over.

Ironically, after being merely a provincial star while the big boys from Amsterdam were winning three successive European Cups, Brokamp did eventually end up at Ajax. But not before a last-ditch tactic by the management at MVV Maastricht kept him in Limburg for one more precious season...and started the affable Brokamp on a new career.

In the face of increasingly seductive offers from the big clubs following Brokamp's career apogee in 1973, MVV knew that a serious sweetener would be required if their talisman were to remain at the club. So they arranged for Brokamp to take over the management of the well-known Maastricht café Aux Pays-Bas ("In the Netherlands"). They knew their man well.

Some explanation is in order here. In Holland, a café is generally a bar as well, with coffee available but liquor flowing freely as well. With his sociable nature and fondness for a good time, Brokamp had long fostered an ambition to run his own establishment. It was to be the start of a beautiful friendship; a common joke in the years to come was that Brokamp was his own best customer.

The seeds of his future career had been planted, but eventually the lure of a big move (and a big city) was too much to resist. With the legendary Ajax side of the early seventies gradually disintegrating, and their attacking stars in particular either leaving for pastures new (Johan Cruyff) or passing their peak (Keizer), some new firepower was needed up front. Willy Brokamp signed for Ajax prior to the 1974/75 season. 

Brokamp later expressed surprise that Ajax had paid so much for a player already in his late twenties, but his initial performances suggested that he was going to prove good value. In his first game, away against NAC Breda, he opened the scoring with a superb bicycle kick as Ajax won 4-1. With Keizer now pulling the strings from midfield behind a forward line of Brokamp, Johnny Rep and the excellent centre-forward Ruud Geels, things looked promising for the Amsterdam club.

Sadly, an ongoing dispute between Keizer and the Ajax management disrupted the team, and results fell away. Brokamp stayed at Ajax for two seasons and notched a creditable 23 goals in 55 games (he was not, it must be stressed, the main striker), but the success of the early 1970s proved elusive.

His time in Amsterdam is, in any case, generally remembered for other reasons. The store of Brokamp anecdotes grew exponentially when he was let loose in one of the most fun-loving cities of Europe.

The club management wisely stationed the newly-arrived Brokamp in a house far from the famous Amsterdam entertainment district, Leidseplein. Brokamp promptly rented an apartment in Leidseplein anyway, without telling the club, and made the most of his new digs. "There's more than just football," was his life's motto.

In another irony, Brokamp's second year at Ajax coincided with the return of Rinus Michels to the club. Although Brokamp bore the totaalvoetbal maestro no particular animus as a result of his ejection from the World Cup squad - he more or less ignored all his coaches, apart from his mentor at Maastricht, George Knobel - he seemed to delight in playing the odd prank on Michels. On one occasion, in a game for which Brokamp was benched, Michels was preparing to make a substitution. Another player was supposed to enter the fray, but Brokamp simply strolled up to the sideline and subbed himself on, with Michels temporarily distracted.

Another apparently unconfirmed story involves Brokamp turning up for a morning training session in a tuxedo. The reason? He had been at a friend's wedding the night before, and the night had, well, turned into morning. Brokamp simply saved some time by skipping the inconvenient going-home bit.

Now 30, Brokamp headed back to Maastricht in the summer of 1976 after his eventful stay in Amsterdam. MVV awaited him, but, perhaps more importantly, so did the Aux Pays-Bas. To be concluded in Part 5.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 4:39 PM 0 comments

November 18, 1973. The crucial clash between the Dutch and the Belgians for a place at the upcoming World Cup. When the Dutch team is announced, there are a couple of small surprises. One is the presence of the obscure veteran sweeper Aad Mansveld in the side; the other is the absence of the player who had been, aside from Johan Cruyff, Holland's most prolific and effective player during the qualifying series: Willy Brokamp.

Coach Frantisek Fadrhonc had in fact been chopping and changing throughout the series; Cruyff later lamented that until the arrival of Rinus Michels, "we didn't have a (set) team". There may have been many reasons for the Czech coach to omit Brokamp for such a crucial game. His less-than-serious attitude? The excellent recent form of his replacement, Rob Rensenbrink of Anderlecht? Or the fact that Rensenbrink, due to his club affiliation, would have been very familiar with his opponents? It still seemed a harsh decision. But as subsequent events showed, Brokamp was unlikely to have taken the snub too much to heart.

It was psychologically a difficult game for the Dutch. If you only need a draw in such a crunch match, in front of your home crowd, how do you approach it? The fans would have been looking forward to their Ajax heroes putting the old enemy to the sword. But the Belgians were acknowledged masters at soaking up pressure and hitting the opposition on the break. And their team, far more settled than that of the Dutch, had its share of quality as well, particularly in the shape of the Anderlecht legend Paul van Himst and the prolific Bruges forward Raoul Lambert.

As it happened, the Dutch were almost forced into an aggressive posture by the paradoxically negative tactics of the sly Belgian coach Raymond Goethals. In a game the Belgians had to win, they committed few men to attack and fell back in numbers whenever the Dutch regained possession. The idea was clearly to entice Cruyff and co. too far forward...and it very nearly worked. 

Faced by a resilient Belgian defence, the Dutch crafted few chances. Johnny Rep nearly scored with a downward header from Cruyff's left-wing cross, but the fine Belgian keeper Christian Piot made a superb save. Later, from another left-wing centre, Rep missed an absolute sitter. In between, van Himst broke smoothly clear with the Dutch stranded upfield, in exactly the manner planned by Goethals, only for Johan Neeskens to bring him down with an appallingly cynical foul. 

There was to be no glorious finale, but as the minutes ticked down it looked as if the Dutch had at least accomplished their objective. Then, suddenly, pandemonium. In the very last minute, van Himst's deftly-taken free kick produced confusion in the Dutch defence, and Jan Verheyen - miles onside - volleyed the ball home crisply at the far post. 

Unbelievably, the Russian referee, Pavel Kazakov, disallowed the goal for offside. 

To this day, it remains one of the World Cup's great sliding-doors moments. Belgium could hardly have made as dazzling a contribution to the 1974 tournament as Cruyff's men. But an injustice had clearly been done. And the legend of Dutch football, and the subsequent achievements of the many distinguished Oranje teams that followed, owed an enormous amount (if only psychologically) to the heroes of 1974. What if...?

And so to the preparations for the tournament in Germany. The newly-installed Rinus Michels picked an initial squad of 24, including Willy Brokamp. The Maastricht hero even played in Holland's final warm-up match, a 2-1 win against German club side Hamburg, and nearly scored with a thunderous volley which was saved magnificently by Hamburg goalie Rudi Kargus.

But 24 had to become 22, and Michels, more of a disciplinarian than Fadrhonc, saw Brokamp's happy-go-lucky attitude as a potential liability. To his credit, Michels did not shirk the duty of breaking the bad news personally to Brokamp and the other unlucky man, the distinguished but injury-prone striker Jan Mulder. "What I have to say now will ruin my whole day," began Michels after summoning the pair. They both knew what was coming.

Their reactions could not have been more different. Mulder, in an episode which has become legendary in Holland, reacted by going straight to his father-in-law's house and smashing up a chicken coop. And Brokamp? His reaction was De Witte all over.

"Thanks, Mr. Michels. I'll have a nice holiday then!"

In Part 4: finally a move away from Maastricht for Willy Brokamp, and then a gradual move into a new and even more congenial career.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 5:20 PM 0 comments

Even by the standards of the Netherlands, the Limburg region is a geographical oddity. A Dutch wedge of land shoved awkwardly in between Belgium and Germany, it is a multilingual area with a number of place names reflecting the erstwhile Gallic influence. One of these French names is Chevremont ("goat-mountain"), a village bordering the town of Kerkrade, where Willy Brokamp was born on 25 February, 1946.

A football prodigy, at the age of only 14 he was representing the village team, which competed in the top amateur competition in the country at the time. By the time he was 18 and his talent had become more widely recognised, scouts from both Ajax and PSV Eindhoven were keen to secure the youngster's signature. But despite the lure of the big western cities (and their entertainment districts), he stayed close to home, signing for the most prominent club in the Limburg region - MVV Maastricht.

The Sterrendragers, as they are known in Holland, were at the time a fixture in the Dutch first division, and the arrival of Brokamp propelled them to greater heights. He played either as a left-winger or a striker, but wherever he was on the pitch, he was a good bet to score. In his two stints at MVV he compiled a total of 140 goals. His unmistakable shock of blond hair gave him the nickname De Witte, "The White One".

Even in his early days, it became well-known that any attempt to "coach" Willy Brokamp, much less rein in his determination to enjoy life to the fullest, was doomed to failure. Yet he became a cult figure in Maastricht, and the love was mutual. His sociability was legendary; an MVV fan recalls a time when he, as a very young boy, simply knocked on the club star's front door and asked, "Mr. Brokamp, we're having a kickaround, would you like to join us?". De Witte smilingly joined the anklebiters as they whacked the leather along the laneways. 

Another tale, told by a Dutch journalist, sheds more light on both Brokamp's effusive personality and the lengths to which the locals would go for him. Assigned to cover the following day's MVV home fixture, the journalist was invited by Brokamp to crash at his place and then travel with the striker to the game by train. Brokamp, typically, stayed out until the small hours. And the train left at 7:30 a.m. Stumbling out of bed at roughly that hour and assuring the nervous journo that there was no problem, Brokamp strolled into the station to find the train still there. "Jeez, Willy," said the conductor with a grin, "it's OK if I leave four or five minutes late, but ten...?".

Despite these idiosyncrasies, Brokamp's scoring prowess eventually earned him a place in the national team. In his first match for the Oranje, a friendly against Israel in 1970, he scored the only goal.

Yet for the next couple of years, he was ignored. The new coach of the Oranje, Frantisek Fadrhonc, was conservative by disposition, and considered the wild-haired glamour boy of the south-east a risky option. In fairness, too, this was the era when Feyenoord and Ajax were winning European Cups, and it is perhaps not surprising that a star from a provincial club found it hard to get a look-in.

By the time of the 1974 World Cup qualifying series, even Fadrhonc was convinced that it was time to give Brokamp another go, so impressive had his record been at MVV. In 1973, he jointly topped the Eredivisie scoring charts and was named Dutch Footballer of the Year. So it was off on the road to Germany...with the sturdy Belgians, led by the canny coach Raymond Goethals, in their way.

In the first encounter between Holland and Belgium in Antwerp, the Dutch were glad to come away with a 0-0 draw; Belgian defender Jean Thissen's shot against a post, and a lofted Paul van Himst free kick clawed away by Jan van Beveren, were as close as the Belgians came to scoring. The Oranje then began storming through the "lesser" matches in their qualifying group, amassing 22 goals in three games against Norway and Iceland, Brokamp scoring five of them. The Belgians, however, had also maintained a perfect record against Norway and Iceland, and thus the second encounter between the local rivals became crucial.

But the Dutch almost stumbled even before that. Their return encounter with Norway began cheerfully enough, when a beautifully-weighted cross from Brokamp on the left was headed in expertly by Johan Cruyff on seven minutes. Another goal avalanche seemed imminent, but the Dutch now found the Norwegians a tough nut to crack. Frustration began to creep in: Wim van Hanegem, never a shrinking violet, was lucky to receive only a yellow card for a dreadful, petulant foul on the Norwegian substitute Tor Egil Johansen, and Cruyff - typically - was subsequently yellow-carded for protesting. On 77 minutes, the unthinkable happened when van Beveren, slow off his line, was beaten to a loose ball by the Norwegian forward Harry Hestad (a former Eredivisie player), who made it 1-1.

Perhaps inevitably, it was Cruyff who saved the Dutch bacon. Three minutes from the end, receiving the ball on the right-hand side of the Norwegian box, he slipped a sublime back-heel into the path of the onrushing Barrie Hulshoff, who fired home. Fadrhonc and his men breathed a sigh of relief.

So it was all down to the return match between Holland and Belgium, to be held in Amsterdam's Olympic Stadium. The match would be a pivotal one in Dutch football history - and despite Brokamp's excellent lead-up form, he found himself benched for the first time in the series for the key encounter. To be continued in Part 3.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 6:57 PM 0 comments

Johan Cruyff's Holland charmed the world at the 1974 World Cup, and very nearly claimed the title. The '74 Oranje have gone down in history as perhaps the greatest side not to win the event, the standard-bearers of the beautiful game during a period of sterility, the long-haired revolutionaries who brought joy, creativity and improvisation back to European football.

This has always been a rather simplistic view of the 1974 Dutch. Rinus Michels' charges relied on speed and strength just as much as skill, and resorted to some very rough play at times (notably in their "semi-final" against an equally over-physical Brazil). But it also tells only part of the story. Qualifying for the tournament in the first place was a messy business for the Dutch, and between the qualification and those memorable few summer weeks in Germany, there were a fair few squabbles - and a fair few changes in personnel.

It is often forgotten now, but Michels, the donnish figure who was hailed as the mastermind behind the Dutch brand of totaalvoetbal, was a very late addition to the piece. The man who steered the Dutch through their qualification group was an unassuming veteran Czech coach by the name of Frantisek Fadrhonc, who had previously managed some minor Dutch clubs with a measure of success. His ousting in favour of Michels was thought by many to be at the behest of Cruyff, who had come to wield enormous influence within the national team setup.

Not that Fadrhonc and the Dutch made easy work of qualifying. Their only real rivals in an otherwise undemanding group were the Belgians, Nations Cup semi-finalists in 1972 and an experienced, tough unit. But given the extraordinary success of Dutch clubs in European competition in recent years, and the emergence of Cruyff as probably the world's best player, the Oranje were firm favourites.

The short version of the story is that both the matches between Holland and Belgium ended 0-0, and since Holland had scored a truckload of goals against the group's two makeweights Norway and Iceland, they advanced to the World Cup on goal difference. The longer, more interesting version of the tale will have to wait until Parts 2 and 3 of this series.

Fadrhonc was not the only man who was present during qualification but absent in Germany. Some of these other changes were, admittedly, enforced. Perhaps the most telling was the absence through injury of the mighty Barrie Hulshoff, a giant at the back for Ajax during their European Cup successes of the early seventies. A defender of great power and endurance and no little skill, and - as we shall see - the scorer of a priceless goal during the qualifying campaign, Hulshoff was sorely missed at the big event. 

But club politics played a major role in the choice of players for the final squad as well. Ajax and Feyenoord, Holland's big two from the west of the country, accounted for 13 of the final 22 chosen (14, if you include former Ajax legend Cruyff). Although PSV Eindhoven were rapidly becoming an important third force in the local game, and would win the next two national championships, the only PSV players to make the cut were the beefy van de Kerkhof twins, plus a veteran utility defender. Jan van Beveren, PSV's outstanding keeper, plus the celebrated attacker Willy van der Kuijlen, had both previously clashed with Cruyff. Perhaps inevitably, they stayed behind.

But there was another unexpected absentee, who is the subject of this series of posts. A player whose contribution to Holland's qualification was very significant, and who was also from outside the charmed Ajax-Feyenoord circle. A little further outside it, in fact.

Consult the Dutch scoring charts for the qualification series. At the top of the list, not surprisingly, sits Cruyff, then at the peak of his powers. Just behind him, however, there is a surprise. "5 goals: Willy Brokamp."

Who?!? I hear you cry.

This is the story of one of the great mavericks of the 1970s, a player who many of his contemporaries considered every bit as talented as Cruyff, but who much preferred to have a good time than commit himself seriously to the game. A player whose laddish, Jimmy Greaves-esque antics became legendary in his native Limburg region, and who is still having a good time today.

Welcome to the world of De Witte - "The White One". The irrepressible Willy Brokamp. More in Part 2.

# posted by Mike Salter @ 9:50 PM 0 comments