‘He goes into the canal’ was written by supporter Wiet Kerkhoven and former police officer Roel Holvast. Both had a lot of contact with each other in the past at NAC matches. They decided to write a book about the experiences surrounding the football club, from the perspectives of supporters and the police, among others.
Co-author Holvast often worked as a police officer around NAC Breda matches in the past. He has seen the role of the police change: “In the 1980s, safety was really the responsibility of the police. If a drunken supporter ran onto the field, we chased him. Fortunately, that is different now, but at the time we had quite a lot of involvement with the football club.”
The book also touches on the “raw” supporter experience. In combination with the peaks and valleys that the club has experienced. According to Kerkhoven, as a season ticket holder for fifty years, that experience and also hooliganism have also undergone a transformation. “You could still notice a lot of that in the old stadium (on Beatrixstraat, ed.). The second half of the eighties was very peaceful. Then you could just play a game of cards on the field and gradually that came back. But in the Rat Verlegh Stadium it is much more difficult. When things get out of hand, it is often outside the stadium. Those are incidents.”
Want to see the full interview with the writers? Then watch the program on Thursday from 6 p.m Made with Passion on BredaNu.
