By DENNIS JANSEN
Dorus de Vries and Ferrie Bodde used to play alongside each other at ADO Den Haag.
Since this season, they are playing for Welsh side Swansea City.
A report on croquettes,confidence and Frans Adelaar's (former ADO Den Haag manager vehicle.
The taxi driver in Swansea, a friendly fatty looking nearly pensioner, can't hide his pride."The Swans are coming, mister! Although Ferrie Bodde didn't play the entire game against Leeds, the Dutch players brought something extra into the game. You will see, Swansea City FC will be back into the highest league soon."
|
The driver's voice is so determined that contradicting could lead to standing still.
It's the day after in Swansea, 2nd biggest city in Wales with over 220,000 inhabitants.
In the city by the river Tawe, life comes alive slowly this morning.
The glorious victory by the local FC over Leeds United (3-2), the day before has put Swansea into a frenzy.
Here and there, people open their shops.
It attracts attention that the Sunday papers are sold out quickly.
Jubilant headlines such as 'Believe flows in Liberty', 'Gimme five!' and 'Swans end old year on a high' are screaming at you.
All the euphoria isn't to be mentioned, just a little bit outside the city at Llandarcy, the sporting centre between the mountains.
The team of Spanish manager Roberto Martínez is doing a relaxing training session.
There is no ball inside the gym.
Players are doing fitness excercises, riding on hometrainers and receive a heavy massage. "It's good for your muscles" states Dorus de Vries, later during lunch - a nice collared beef,rolled in a huge, washed piece of slaw."We're now training once a day, not surprising when you're playing 8 games within a month's time, as we're doing in January."
Ferrie Bodde will miss most of these games, he will be suspended.
Advantage of that disadvantage: He will be able to recover from a light injury: bruished ankle. The aftermath of Bodde's red card against Leeds, giving after a harsh foul by Bodde, seems minimal.
It was annoying, but that's all. Only a few people had words about it.
Even his manager shrugs his shoulders about it: "Such charges belong to Ferrie, I don't blame him. I did blame him for head-butting a player, which he was sent off for aswell earlier on"
There were times that PSV were interested in Bodde, that he was named Dutch Roy Keane and that pundits predicted that he had a bright future ahead of him.
But the exponent of ADO's youth academy took a plane to Wales last Summer, to Swansea in the third division of England.
How could it happen that Ferrie Bodde turned pale in his own green and yellow?
"Confidence" says Dorus de Vries, team mate and friend."The boy needs confidence. When I played with him, you felt that there was more to come of him, but it didn't come out. It does come out here, Ferrie is really reviving his career. He dares to pass, dares to put players on their places, plays confident, actually he plays well in every game. He is the best player in our squad."
|
They don't recognize him anymore, says Bodde himself aswell."This manager gives me so much confidence. I've been voted MotM five times already, scored 4 goals and no bad goals either."
"At ADO Den Haag, I played the first game and then the next game I didn't. Sometimes I played in midfield, sometimes at the back. Once I had even been replaced after 13 minutes. At the end of last season I was thinking that I couldn't even play football anymore."
Ferrie Bodde was deemed to end his career at ADO. After a disastrous season which ended in relegation his contract was still running, but the Den Haag lad was about to look for his cooking certificates and pick up his normal life. Just the friendship with Santi Kolk and the feeling he has for ADO Den Haag kept him on his feet in the restless pool that the Zuiderpark was at that time. "It was everyone for his own. So sad. Year after year you play for the new stadium. You look forward to it, and now? It is there now, and you know, I have not even been there yet. If possible, I would have loved to play for ADO until my 30th birthday."
Confidence, there is the word again "I missed it at Den Haag. Lex Schoenmaker gave it to me, Adelaar didn't. I remember that Adelaar came into the player's lounge and drew a vehicle on the drawing board.
With players inside and behind it. No, not in front.
That was meant to show that nobody was really bringing the winning spirit into the team. My name was above one of the images behind the vehicle. Very humiliating, in the player's lounge of your club.
De Vries: "I was one of the players inside the vehicle, haha. If I remember correctly, the players behind the vehicle pulled it backwards."
They don't really want to talk about Adelaar. De Vries: "His distrust agaisnt everything and everybody reflected on the team. He should have been corrected by the board. They knew what was going on"
"Do you think that those guys were not capable of playing football? Edwin de Graaf became NAC captain, Van der Leegte plays for PSV nowadays, Kolkka and later Mols went to Feyenoord, Kolk is playing for Vitesse, Elia for FC Twente and Ferrie has waken interested from Premier League clubs. Thorougly correct, because he is capable of that level.
|
Bodde: "I feel 10 times stronger than at ADO. I have one goal: To show what I'm capable of and then getting higher. Do you know what was really special? Recently we played away at Leyton Orient and there were some ADO fans in the crowd, it's a pity that I didn't know that before the game, otherwise I would definately had a little chat with them. It seems that they have not forgotten about me."
De Vries already played in GB last season, at Scottish Dunfermline."I had a great year in Scotland. We were not good in the league,but the games against Celtic and Rangers were superb and we even reached the League Cup final. We lost 1-0 to Celtic in front of 50,000 spectators at Hampden Park, but only a few players could say that they have played in a final.
Goalkeeper coach Stephen Woods gave me loads of attention and I really became a better goalkeeper."
The goalkeeper feels home on the island. The Noord-Holland lad is living in an appartment with sight on the beach. The waves of the Tawe only just don't roll against his home. He is really placed with the location of his home, with a little harbour near and on walking distance of the city centre."You can go everywhere."
Girlfriend Joni comes over for every home game. In short: He misses Holland not. "I'm not paying attention to Holland and Eredivisie. I want to make it over here.. Looking how high I can get, my goal is to get promoted with Swansea to the Championship. Probably this club will walk the same way like Reading or Fulham. To Premier League. That would be superb."
When Dunfermline relegated, there was several interest in De Vries. Via Stephen Woods, who played with Martínez at Motherwell, he landed in Swansea. De Vries was impressed by the Welsh club: "The club is full of ambition and really shows it. Everything is all about promotion. The club has a new stadium for two years. 2,000 fans travel to away games.
De Vries already had a year of Scotland in his pocket, for Bodde it was the first time that he crossed the border - with girlfriend Melissa and his two sons. "We had to acclimatize. Get used to the football,the people, the language, the surroundings, to everything. It made the relationship even stronger.You have to do it together"
Mainly due to the children, the appartment by the sea was swapped for a home in Fforestfach, a Centre Parc-like area that Bodde describes as "Swansea's Den Hoorn".
Now they live in a big house, with garden. "Nice for the boys."
|
On the other side of the road, there is a Tesco Extra. "Jumbo,Albert Heijn and Mediamarkt all-in-one. Open 24h/day" explains Melissa. "You can buy anything there, from TVs to cleaning stuff."
Everybody coming over has to bring cheese. Sister Angela and her boyfriend Arjan brought 3 kilos of steak. "Sealed," smiles Melissa. "Bringing croquettes is harder, Fer misses them, just like "patatje oorlog" (NOTE: Fish and chips with many sauces) and I miss the real McDo's sauce. The mayonaise over here is crap."
She says she ignores herself, for his sake, but it's hard to adjust, for Ferrie aswell. "I'm not really an adventurer," clarifies Bodde."Never been. I don't really need to go far on holiday. When the summer holiday comes we will go back to Holland, we'll go to Plopsaland in Belgium, for the kids, after that we will go home. Not Spain or something, just home!"