A Little Part Of Lancashire

Helmond Sport  1  De Graafschap  2

Eerst Divisie

“I don’t suppose you get many English people coming to Helmond to watch the football?” was my contribution to the small talk in a pub in the centre of the town.

“We had 100 Burnley supporters here two weeks ago” was the reply, and that clearly shut me up!

Yes, it appears that unknowingly we had arrived in 'Helmond Province', where the local football club has links with Burnley Football Club, a relationship that stems back over twenty years, quite why, I cannot tell you. 

Helmond is a small sized city that sits just to the East of Eindhoven, it’s twinned with Mechelen in Belgium and was also the birthplace of the famous footballing twins, Willy and Rene van der Kerkhoff.

Journey wise from our base in Duiven, it took around an hour to get to Helmond, and soon we were parked in the centre and making our way to the Lokaal 42 bar for food and drinkies. It was in here where the conversation was struck and the Burnley story came to light.

Now, I’ll be brutally honest, on our one and only trip to Turf Moor to watch Burnley a couple of years ago, it wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences. I guess when you are in with the home supporters and you are effectively an away fan (it was Spurs – the team of young Master Hatt), it’s never going to be the most comfortable of times. 

I did speak to a Burnley fan a couple of weeks later and he told me that we’d simply picked just about the worst area of the ground to get tickets in. So, benefit of the doubt, Burnley fans are great lads and lasses, we were just unlucky.

Anyway, Helmond Sport, the club formed in 1967 after local professional club Helmondia 55 had gone pop. They started out in the third tier of Dutch football until they were promoted to the second tier in 1968. They won the Eerst Divisie (as it is known) in 1982 and went on to have two seasons in the Eredivisie, before being relegated back to the second tier again, where they remain.

Other notables include a Dutch Cup Final in 1985 where a late defeat at the hand of FC Utrecht put paid to nay hopes of silverware. While twice they have got close to returning to the Eredivise, but on both occasions, in 2005 and 2011 they fell short at the final hurdle in the Play-Offs.

With a parking space secured we elected to make our way round the stadium to the Supporters Home (social club to you and me), where we were greeted on our way in, and of course my English accent was soon picked up on!

“Where are you from in England?”

“Is that anywhere near Burnley?”

Obviously the locals are not going to have heard of Belper so I told them I was from Derby, which quickly translated into Derby County, and of course those two magic words guaranteed to glean sympathy from any Dutchman, Phillip Cocu….

Suddenly we were guests of the Helmond Fanatics, in turn they came over to talk to us, they bought us beer, and offered us access to anything we wanted, food, taxis, bicycles, the lot! They were absolutely fantastic lads and really couldn’t do enough for us. They also told us about the clubs plans for a new stadium, but they were very much against it as the plans for the new Supporters Home did not met the expectations of the Fanatics (it was too small).

They try and make a trip to Burnley once a season, so they told us, and that visit is reciprocated as it was a couple of weeks ago during the international break. I couldn't see any similarities between the two places, or indeed the two clubs, so it might just be one of those things that started and simply just grew. Anyway, a signed Jeff Hendrick shirt sits proudly next to the bar in Helmond.

Securing tickets for football matches in the second tier is not difficult, you just walk up to the ticket office and buy one, with no need for a Passport, character reference or a DNA Sample, it was very easy.

De Braak, as it is known, is typical of many of the clubs in this division. It comprises of three box style stands, the main version having the hospitality areas at the back of it, while we chose to sit in the stand opposite, where the sizable number of away supporters are located at one end.

The Fanatics are located behind the goal, complete with their flags (with reference to the Clarets), while the opposite end is inaccessible for spectators. They also have proper floodlights, and by that I mean the old fashioned towers that could easily be climbed if you were that way inclined!

A modest 1,656 spectators had forked out to watch the game, and I would estimate several hundred had travelled from Doetinchem to support the visitors. The first half was not very good from a spectacle point of view, so the half time complimentary beer was well received, and having decided to take up a position behind the goal alongside the fanatics, we were treated to a much better second period.

Ralf Seuntjens gave the second placed visitors the lead just after the break and it did look like the three points were heading back to Gelderland, but then in the 85^th minute, Helmond’s Tibeau Swinnen found the net for an equalizer.

But like all good teams, the ‘Super Boeren’ were not fazed by the setback and in the last minute they grabbed the winner through Jasper van Heertum. De Graafschap are looking for a swift return to the Eredivisie after being relegated last season. Helmond fall to fifth from bottom, albeit in a league where in all fairness you simply don’t get relegated.

The escape from Helmond was easy and soon we were back in De Tol (a pub in Duiven), reflecting on our first game of the Football Weekend to have taken place in our host Country. The memory will always be of the superb welcome and the hospitality of the Fanatics, who have over the years as a national collective, had a reputation for some of the more unsavoury elements of football, but certainly not in this case.

Respect to Helmond, and somewhat grudgingly, to Burnley........