AWAY WITH THE COMBI!

It is the beginning of August, the expectation among the FC Twente fans is moderately positive. A place among the first 6 should be possible. The "Open day" drew a lot of people, the Arke stadium has been taken into use. Everybody is ready for the new season. The "Red army" which has supported FC Twente massively over the past 3 seasons (also in European away matches) already showed in the Intertoto matches that they were all ready for the new league. The first match will be Heerenveen away. To many it still is the holiday season so the FC will probably be supported by hundreds of fans during the opening match of the season. But then the news hits like a grenade. If you want to come along to the match at Heerenveen then you must hand in your season's ticket as a collateral for possible vandalisms. If something in the bus is demolished by no matter who you lose your season's ticket. This is a blow in the face of the very loyal fans who also support the FC in away matches. Must everybody pay now for the behaviour of only a few adolescents in the bus? There are stewards, aren't there, who can check this and that in the buses? Oh no, these people don't even dare leaving their places. Well, don't let them come along then either. How about the fans from outside Enschede by the way? They will have to come to Enschede, buy a combi ticket at the stadium first, hand over their season's ticket and drive back home again. Then on the day of the match again travel to Enschede and depart for Heerenveen. Simply scandalous!

What now was the story lying behind this measure? It seems to be the case that not a single bus company still wanted to transport Twente fans. Last year upon each away match at least "something" was destroyed. If the perpetrators were caught at all in such a case they were back in the bus two weeks later already. (this by the way is being claimed by Mr van Disveld of Arke, yes him, the man has never even been along yet). Question remains why Twente only came with this measure at such a late moment? We suppose that as usual they haven't thought of arranging anything at all for the fans. You can shout that the atmosphere is fantastic and that the FC has many good fans. But if you don't do anything for them then these words don't have any meaning at all either and it just indicates you give your fans a low priority. And then there has to be this former "figure fucker" in the board who for the sake of form has been appointed treasurer. This man who loves hockey, has got safety matters in his package of responsibilities. That he doesn't know the first thing on this however and is very customer unfriendly may be clear by now. If a reporter of Tubantia calls him and asks for an explanation on this measure, van Dijk gives him the names of another whom the reporter should call instead. If the man then indicates that the persons mentioned are not present then "mister" van Dijk just hangs up. Who the hell does this rude bastard think he is? If you take a seat in the board you also take the responsibilities and you are not just there for the show (in this case he is). But hey, if you don't know your matters the best thing to do is hang up the phone after all. And rather also GET OUT!!

For the match against NAC the same rules were in effect. Consequence 1 van with Twente fans on their way to Breda. The following away match on the calendar was that against Cambuur. Check Teletext what had been arranged again this time. To our great amazement nothing at all! FC Twente fans just were not welcome in Leeuwarden. Does it get any more idiotic? Called some of the involved right away. What turned out to be the case: Twente was busy arranging a combi trip. All visiting clubs in Leeuwarden can only visit the matches per combi. Twente and the police of Enschede neatly apply for the tickets belonging to the trip. Well, now it is the case that the clubs in the Netherlands have made a mutual deal that fans who travel per combi get a 40 % discount off the admission ticket in order to make the complete trip somewhat cheaper. Nowhere any problems, just in Leeuwarden. This club refused to give any discount for any admission tickets, as a discussion arose on this they just hung up in the capital of F( r )iesland. This of course was against the sore leg of the fan co-ordinator and the Enschede police who sent a fax to the Dutch FA right away. Not with the expected result however, as reported previously already it is a mutual agreement between the clubs and no passage from the Dutch FA regulations. For Twente there wasn't any possibility therefore to let fans travel to Cambuur. Consequence of this was that only the Circle of Friends had. Probably bought without discount. We have made a final attempt still after that to arrange tickets through Twente, and what do you know we are being pushed into committing fraud by the lady of the reception over there. "Why don't you just arrange a club card of another club and buy a ticket with that? No problem".

Some sixty fans decided to try on this glove and managed to get their hands on tickets via scores of ways (SENS, as leaky as a basket). On Saturday we were therefore heading for an away match like we used to back in the old days, by car. Once in Leeuwarden we walked into Cafe "Cambuur". The 20 MI-siders present looked up very amazed indeed as a small army of Tukkers just walked into their cafe. Everything inside went in a reasonable atmosphere. The cambuur fans even helped some Tukkers who didn't have any yet to some tickets. Also other Tukkers travelling apart from this group could buy some tickets NORMALLY at the cash registers. The fans who went saw a regular victory of their. Only the Cambuur fans couldn't take this too well and were waiting outside the Twente section with 300 men. The MI-siders started counting down to charge at zero, however at four the group from Twente decided to attack first. The F ( r ) isians were beaten on the run pretty soon already and now they too know again what the highest division is.

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