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Excelsior

THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE OF A 'WASTE PAPER CLUB'

Indeed: Excelsior are the club formerly known as 'Feyenoord Lite'. We repeat: formerly. Excelsior are formally still Feyenoord's 'satellite club', but things have changed: a few years ago Feyenoord issued an official statement that they will no longer 'park' players at Woudestein Stadium unless Excelsior pay the fee that every other club would pay. Excelsior no longer have the same sponsors as Feyenoord. No longer a coaching staff entirely on Feyenoord's payrole. Excelsior, First Division champions of 2006, are by any means a fundamentally different club from the club that spent a single season in the Eredivisie in 2002-2003. Today, Excelsior pay their own way. The fans, for one, are delighted about it: their club got its dignity back.

Excelsior became Feyenoord's official breeding-ground in 1996 (and would probably have gone out of business otherwise), but the club from the Rotterdam neighborhood of Kralingen is most definitely one with a history of its own. Most people don't seem to realize, but Feyenoord (of 1908) are actually the youngest of Rotterdam's three professional sides. Sparta (of 1888) and Excelsior (of 1902) are older, for what that's worth. Needless to say, though, that Excelsior are the smallest and most modest of the three. Their number one 'ambition' was always survival. This season won't be different. Club and fans, however, seem to be proud of their low-key existence, in a quaint kind of way.


Thijs Libregts, Oranje manager between
1988 and 1990, was an Excelsior man.

Excelsior won their only significant piece of silverware in 1927: the Silver Ball, a Rotterdam trophy that is now considered to be one of the precursors of the Dutch Cup. Excelsior grabbed it by booking a historic and spectacular 5-0 win over Feyenoord in the final. Three years later, in 1930, Excelsior made it to the KNVB Cup final. The opponents were once again Feyenoord, but this time the red and black lost: 1-0. The club's highlight after the war? Probably that one time in 1980, when they spoiled the 'farewell game' of Feyenoord legend Wim Jansen by spectacularly lashing out at De Kuip: 0-4. Indeed: Feyenoord have always been Excelsior's rivals, the next-door neighbours Excelsior really, really wanted to beat... That's why it felt so unnatural to become their 'sister club' in 1996.


Excelsior in 1974: "What do you mean: sponsor?
The A on our shirts has nothing to do with Akai..."

As modest and destitute as they were, Excelsior were always remarkably progressive when it came to commercial developments in football. In 1954 the club were key advocates of legalizing 'football for money' in The Netherlands, something Ajax were initially dead against. Twenty years later, in 1974, Excelsior were the first Dutch football club to find themselves a shirt sponsor, although they wouldn't admit it at the time. Jersey sponsors were not allowed in The Netherlands and the Excelsior board calmly insisted that the capital 'A' on the jersey stood for 'A-squad', as in: 'first team'. Everybody knew, however, that it was the capital 'A' of electronics giant Akai. The KNVB forced the club to remove it, but when jersey sponsoring was officially legalized in 1982 Excelsior were the first to put a name on their kits: Akai, of course.


Return to the Eredivisie in 2006: coach Mario Been
lifts the First Division champions' shield.

Excelsior's interest in money is understandable, for the simple reason that the club always needed every penny they could possibly find. Henk Zon, Excelsior's remarkable chairman between 1952 and 1977, used to take off his bowler hat after every speech for a quick collection: "Some change for the club, please." And Excelsior became famous for collecting waste paper in Rotterdam on a weekly basis. It yielded thousands of guilders every year and although it's decades ago that the old van of the Excelsior 'paper volunteers' drove its last round through the city, Excelsior are still referred to by many older football fans as the 'waste paper club'. Truly legendary players? Not too many, with all due respect for Arie Vermeer, the Excelsior kid who played one game for Oranje in 1946. Or the amicable Rob Jacobs. Or Thijs Libregts, who later became Holland manager. He got the job after Euro 1988 and qualified for the 1990 World Cup without losing a single game. Yet, he was replaced before the actual tournament. The KNVB did not believe in him. 

In the early 1990s Excelsior were about to go bankrupt. Every season could be their last, home games were attended by less than 1,000 people and, admittedly, Feyenoord's embrace of the old club from Kralingen came just in time. The fans grumbled, especially as Feyenoord's 'imperialism' initially failed to yield better results. However, sarcasm turned into acceptance, sometimes even appreciation, when things started to improve: Excelsior became one of the First Division's best sides and an almost annual participant in the promotion play-offs. The third attempt, in the year of Excelsior's centenary (2002), was a 'bingo'. Today? Almost everybody expected Excelsior to go down in 2006, but they didn't. The old 'waste paper club' survived... again. (MP)

EXCELSIOR FACTS

Founded: 23 July 1902
City: Rotterdam
Stadium: Woudestein Stadium
Capacity: 3,800
Official website: http://www.sc-excelsior.nl/

Honors:

  • No national or international trophies won

Recent History: Ajax vs Excelsior