A boy from Zeeland and soccer

[Thunfish 72]

Guide:

Blue bold lines are from Sunrise.

Green bold lines are from Sunrise's girlfriend, Luz.

Red bold lines are from Sunrise's childhood friend, Nikki.

 

To some, the idea of a Holiday for someone of some stature in a sport such as ice hockey featured travelling to some sort of resort, enjoying the relaxation of sun rays and the beach side - unless the resort was a ski resort, which meant going downhill on a snowboard, the fun coming from not getting injured. But if you're Sunrise van de Schubbekuteveen, such concepts of going down the dangerous mountains with a mere piece of plywood and straps under your feet were not to be... or, at least, for the moment. The reason? It was soccer season and his home village's team was actually playing for promotion.

 

Like the village's favourite son (who had been promoted from the minors to the European league), the almighty Voetbal Vereniging Schubbekuteveen (usually referred to by the news under the shorter name of Schu'teveen) were one of the four teams battling out for a spot on the Tweede Divisie (the third tier of Dutch football) as the runners-up of the Saturday league. With the nature of Dutch football being rather odd (plenty of teams preferred to remain amateur instead of spending money on the higher echelons of the sport), the current champion of their league (the amateur team for national powerhouse Ajax) opted to bow out from promotion, meaning that one of the four remaining promotion slots had been freed-up. Instead of making things easy and just promoting the two teams that were behind the amateur department of the Amsterdam-based club, the national federation opted to come up with a playoff duel just because they could. Thus, runners-up Schubbekuteveen were now on their way to the nation's capital as they geared up to play upstart side Amsterdamsche 99.

 

Thus, it came to be that both Sunrise and Luz were stuck on a bus driving the fans of the small village's football club towards this "David against Goliath" match-up. To Sunrise, it was a normal adventure: traveling to Amsterdam was a normal thing that he would do during the week, though the reasons varied. Usually, it was for classes but you could never rule out movie trips, book-buying trips... and football trips. It didn't help the club was run by his family - he still could re-tell the entire story about the time his father totally scored three goals against PSV on a cold afternoon - so he was pretty used to the blue-and-yellow outfit. Luz had an unique reaction to it. As a girl, she used to watch the game with her parents but she was never any good at it. The funny thing was that she was the one enjoying the banter of the Dutch citizens, singing chants with the populace, many of which friends of her boyfriend. She took to the culture pretty quickly.

 

Luz's eyes widened as they entered the Olympic Stadium. "Woah. That's not too shabby a place, isn't it?"

 

The two quickly found themselves some seats amidst the Schubbekuteveen delegation, right above the middle line of the pitch. The small crowd that came from the Zeeland village was joined by those with sympathies to the underdog from all across the country. It certainly was a respectable gathering of people, although the prospects of so many vapid fans for a small farming village that was often ignored to ridiculous levels (even the war, come to think of it) certainly raised a few eyebrows. Sunrise quickly pushed those thoughts aside when he saw the tamed blue and yellow jerseys moving amidst the green pitch. He could recognize some of the faces, definitively. The two wing-backs were two old classmates from outside of the village, the central midfielder was a Suriname export that had attended his school for two years before trying out for football. Hell, one of the two strikers was Matt de Haan, the guy who lived in the farm down the road. A sigh left out his mouth, which Luz instantly caught and asked about. "It's nothing. Just the realization my friend there failed his trial."

 

"Or maybe," a serious, young female voice with a lot of pep replied before either could say a word. "He's on loan to his hometown team because Sparta Rotterdam have bigger issues to fix at the moment." While Luz remained puzzled, Sunrise seemed to get a lighter look on his face. "Hey, Sunrise. Long time no see." It was Nikki, one of his childhood friends. She certainly looked a bit older. Taller. Somewhat fatter too. Given the circumstances, he chose to start by introducing her to Luz, who was as warm as usual with new people by giving the engineer-in-training a hug. "So, I see you kept in touch with him, eh?" The question was replied with glee. "Better than a certain hockey player I know. But yeah, we still talk. Pretty much everyone on the gang does. You're harder to pin down, though."

 

Nikki started to talk about what everyone was up to. She was actually working part-time with a German company called Bernstein AS - under recommendation of a retired engineer of theirs who had moved to their village and had two kids named after his boss and the wife of said boss - and not only was she there with several of her co-workers, but she was able to wrangle the presence of the company's boss himself. Maybe he could back the club? Who knows. She then went over what everyone was doing. Matt was successful on his football trial but had been loaned to Schubbekuteveen for playing time and his twins were probably gonna join the team as well later on. Some had gone into the police, others were already working on museums. Life was good for pretty much everyone. "And now, I can gladly add a chapter on you here." Nikki showed him a book with the words "My Friends and I" in clear English.

 

Luz had a large grin on her face. "So, does that mean I can tell you everything about him for research?" The Dutch boy raised an eyebrow before his mouth went agape. "A-Ahah, t-that's not necessary at all, is it, Nikki?" The ginger merely contributed to Luz's gamble. "Well... it might make for some good material for the readers, yes." And now, Sunrise was a stuttering mess. Yes, he was aware becoming a popular player would bring attention to his village and him, he wasn't exactly sure if a friend would resist the opportunity to paint an unflattering painting of his. He was normal but given the teasing nature of Luz and Nikki's creativity, that could end poorly.

 

Amidst all this, his attention reached the stadium around him. A mass of pink and black. Amsterdam 99. Right, there was a game to watch. It was kinda similar to him, that feeling of going against towering beasts, specially when you look from the ground up. It was part of his job - a plucky minnow from the border of Zeeland squaring off against tradition and power. Sunrise against the rampaging beasts of the European league. Schubbekuteveen against the rampant pink, blinding yellow and tame black colours of a cosmopolitan outfit like Amsterdamche 99. A99 were the stronger side, even if their finish of fifth raised a few eyebrows about their efforts in face of the cash the team could pull up. They also certainly had support. The stadium stands were suddenly covered in pink and black. The Olympic Stadium hadn't have seen this much life into it since the days of... well... the Olympics.

 

Sunrise smiled. The referee whistled. It was time for the minnows to slap the giants.

 

(1286 words, claimable for the week ending in October 31th and November 7th)

Edited October 31, 2021 by Thunfish

[KaleebtheMighty 1,443]

Great read! I love these kind of stories that put your player out in the world. It was enjoyable to dive into and see what your player gets into. And I think the introduction of multiple characters give the story more sustenance rather than just following one character. I think though that some of your sentences could be shortened; a few of them were rather lengthy. But overall a good read, great job!

 

Score: 8.5/10

[Masu Chan 431]

Very entertaining! I like how you had the different colours indicating who was speaking, you obviously put a lot of time and effort into this media spot...I mean 1000+ words is very impressive as I stuggle to just get 500 each week. For the length, effort and ability to keep it entertaining I got to rate it.

 

9.5/10

[osens 297]

Loved reading it, you kept me interested all the way through. This is some serious work and I know how hard those long writings come, but I feel like you did great with text formating and writing. Loved the picture and smalla annotation. Maybe for me there are a little too much colours but too much are better than nothing. Hope to see some more from you and keep these interesting media spots coming!

 

10/10

[Thunfish 72]

Claiming it this week, aye.