Orange Fever

While I am typing this a group of young people is singing the national anthem in front of my window. Behind my house is a parking lot where they have put a barbeque, a mattress and a TV in order to spend the whole evening there. I am sure that even here in the Netherlands people who live in this street would normally frown upon their behaviour; their loudness, alcoholic drinks, and public urination. But not today. You see, today the Dutch play a football match for the World Cup and that is considered more important than Christmas.







I am amazed how important football, to me nothing more than a game, is considered here. The first match the Dutch team had to play, against Denmark, was on Monday the 14th at 13:30. This caused major problems. I have heard people say that eighty percent of the Dutch watch the World Cup series, and judging by all the orange flags and other paraphernalia on people’s houses this seems a totally justifiable estimation. This means that about thirteen and a half million people wanted to watch that game live. Most people solved this problem by taking up a free day or watching the game at work. Big screens were placed in the canteens of the army and factories, and small screens in shops, chemists, and even attached to market stalls. The shops that sell TVs were nice enough to place all the big ones facing the street, so everybody who wasn’t home could watch the match standing together in the street.

But, Monday afternoon is a regular school day for all the teenagers in the Netherlands! Protests about having to go to school started days before the actual game, and not just by my pupils, but also by my colleagues! We had received strict orders that all of the classes would go on as usual, despite the fact that some other schools had decided to give everybody the afternoon off. There were some complains, and some students played truant with their parents’ approval, but the school didn’t budge to football mania. Luckily for everybody, all the other games the Dutch team plays are either in the evening or weekend.

Granted, the Dutch are good at soccer. Or at least that’s what I hear. I have already heard the first shouts of joy, meaning that a goal has been scored. That’s how the other twenty percent of the Netherlands keeps track of what’s happening in football land: we hear a lot of “yeahs” and vuvuzelas, and sometimes a few “boohs” and count them to make up the score. So far, it’s one-nil for the Netherlands versus Cameroon.

For those of you who are not Dutch and think that all these involuntary sounds of rapture and grief are produced by men, think again! Orange fever is felt and shared by both sexes, all races, all ages and all layers of society. Everybody who is infected dresses in orange, uses orange make-up, and wears orange wigs. Although, secretly, many football fanatics are just in it for the beer and company.

Even I am fond of the World Cup series, because even though I don’t care about football, I really enjoy seeing eighty percent of my fellow Dutchmen in such a state of ecstasy!

Love,
Jonna