On Saturday I tried becoming Dutch for the day. I’ve been watching this closely and it’s a close-run thing but it’s the Holland fans who seem to have the most fun. Croatia came close. Scotland too, until ten minutes into their opening game when Florian Wirtz scored. But the Dutch just seem to be the nuttiest and they have the best outfits. The festival highs of their spirits don’t seem too closely connected to the winning of football matches, plus I already owned an orange T-shirt and I wanted to do that dance that’s going viral when this massive wall of orange somehow shifts left and then right all in perfect unison.
It’s actually pretty easy to become a Dutchman. Obviously you can spot them a mile off. On arrival at Berlin station, I ask a bloke in an orange suit and an orange top hat where his countrymen are meeting and he shares with me a screenshot of the details.
Four hours before kick-off against Turkey, then, I arrive at Hammarskjoldplatz with 4,000 others. That’s a guess; there’s probably more.
I try to do some journalism and ask after the origins of their carefree spirits. In a survey of four, three say beer and the other says the vodka in the beer. I ask what’s really required to be a Dutchman and the answers are to like cheese and liquorice, to be open and very direct in conversation and maybe to be a few inches taller.
I fall into conversation with Janneke and Jolanda, two 54-year-old professionals and best friends from the age of 11. They drove the eight hours to Berlin from their home town, Deventer, 30 miles north of Arnhem, the day before. They didn’t have tickets for the game but that didn’t bother them remotely. They just wanted to be here in Hammarskjoldplatz for the stadium walk. Lots of people come, apparently, just for the walk.
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“I get goosebumps,” Janneke said.
“I’ve got a lot to worry about,” Jolanda said. “But not today. I love today.”
Over 20 years, the stadium walk has become a staple of the orange fan experience. Hammarskjoldplatz is three kilometres from the Olympiastadion, which is about right. It takes 75 minutes, largely because whenever local residents open their windows or wave a flag, the entire crowd stops to serenade them.
Really, it is so preposterously joyful, even if the song list is limited. How the hell did Sweet Caroline become a Dutch anthem? I don’t know but they’re welcome to it. Football chants are very transferable. The Dutch variation of Freed From Desire translates to “Take your shirt off and wave”. They do a Dutch Auld Lang Syne which is basically “Holland, we love you”. There was a new song yesterday: “Shame for Deutschland, everything is over” but it is delivered with such chorused jubilance that even the residents seem to enjoy it too.
At the centre of the walking crowd, between the two open-topped orange double-decker buses, are five busts on poles, a kind of Mount Rushmore of Dutch football: Ruud Gullit, Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten, Dennis Bergkamp and Arjen Robben.
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Robben? Really? He got a tad lucky to get in there; what about Mario Melchiot, I ask, not entirely seriously. But the sarcasm goes unnoted and we are into a conversation about whether the Dutch could ever really love a defender and, if Holland win these Euros, would Virgil van Dijk get a look in to join the Mount Rushmore five?
Then everyone starts shouting for Wesley Sneijder to sing us a song. Why? Because that’s him atop the second orange bus, kind of in DJ mode. And he responds by playing Snollebollekes’ signature hit, Links rechts, at which point 4,000 people — or maybe more — start jigging four steps one way and then four back again the other. That’s everyone, a very wide range of ages, laughing and dancing at the behest of one of the Noughties’ greatest attacking midfielders. Think Paul Scholes leading Chumbawamba.
Snollebollekes, by the way, were originally a party act but in a limited field they have become one of Holland’s best known bands. There have been nearby ground tremors recorded at renditions of Links rechts.
It’s not just Dutch doing this, either. Turks are joining in, plus Germans and Danes (why are they still here?). Everyone’s welcome. This is all magnificently orange but it’s hardly aggressively tribal. Compare that to the Turks’ stadium walk which was broken up by police due to a large number of fans making the Turkish ultra-nationalist hand gesture — the same gesture that led to Merih Demiral, the Turkey defender, being banned for two games.
The Dutch will be back doing their version of fandom on the road to Dortmund to play England on Wednesday. It’s not as if the game needs it, but they will ensure it’s an epic occasion. And when they get to the Westfalenstadion, they’re going to be given the famous south stand’s “Yellow Wall” which will, of course, become orange. And happy and hilarious. Well, that’s their modus operandi anyway. It’s their great escape. Wonderfully contagious.
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“We’re not really nationalistic people,” says the man in an orange bear suit. “It’s just when we wear orange, we come together.”
“You can’t wipe the smile off my face,” says Jolanda who sees Sneijder on the bus and then makes a quick exit. “I hear he’s available.”
