In our column “The disappeared club,” in this installment we visit Aeolus. The Rotterdam club existed between 1934 and 2011 and eventually merged with fellow city club Leonidas. ‘At the end, nothing was left of the old Aeolus.’
‘It’s actually funny that I get to tell the story about Aeolus. Because in the end I wrung the club’s neck.’
Dick van Yperen’s laughter echoes through the former clubhouse of Aeolus, the club of which he was president for twenty years. The club has not been in the location of this reportage for thirty years, in the west of Rotterdam. But the shelter is back in field hockey hands. Since a few years, Delfshaven is the proud owner of the little building, which for years was the canteen of soccer club RVV Blijdorp.
Van Yperen can appreciate that change. He walks past the sitting pit, which Delfshaven will soon occupy. ‘I think it’s wonderful that that pit is coming back here. It’s a very nice nod to the past. Everyone who came here knew: that’s where they have that pit. With a frowned face: ‘But those soccer players had no feeling for that at all. They threw the place shut because they wanted a separate boardroom. A mortal sin.
The sitting pit of Delfshaven, exactly where the famous pit of Aeolus sat. Photo: Willem Vernes
Showering with coins
Van Yperen was joined by Tim Steens in “his” old clubhouse, which is undergoing major renovation. Of course known as a former international and field hockey commentator. But also former player of Aeolus and son of one of the clubs founders. He knows the stories of his father, Ben Steens. ‘With fifteen men they started Aeolus. A school club that belonged to Franciscus College, led by their math teacher. They already had a soccer and tennis club. So field hockey joined them in the 1930s. It went without saying that I also had to play field hockey at Aeolus, as “the son of. That wasn’t allowed until I was twelve. At that time – late 1960s – field hockey was not offered for younger children. I played soccer for years first.
Steens, the only male international Aeolus has produced, looks outside for a moment, through the large windows of the clubhouse. ‘At that time, the clubhouse was further down this sports park. Against baseball club Neptunus. They wanted and got a stadium, so we had to move. We didn’t mind too much, did we Dick? Van Yperen: “Not at all. If it rained outside, it got just as wet inside. Besides, in the old clubhouse there wasn’t even hot water.’ Steens: ‘When we played, we had to use tokens to get the showers going. A dime in and you could go for a few minutes. As if we were camping.’
Aeolus belonged to a Roman Catholic school. And that was very noticeable. ‘We started the season with a mass,’ Steens recalls. ‘Then the teams were blessed.’ Van Yperen laughs: ‘Whether that really helped…? We weren’t very good. I remember Heren 1 losing a game in the Third Division. They thought it was unfair because the opponent trained during the week. That was seen as highly unsportsmanlike, haha.’
Tim Steens and Dick van Yperen take out the scrapbook. Photo: Willem Vernes
How the priest disappeared
‘We had a spiritual advisor here for many years. That was the best man’s name. That was a priest, who walked around here and checked that things weren’t getting out of hand. It didn’t bother us, but we did notice that the Catholic character was gradually disappearing from the club. We no longer walked the field here praying. In the early 1970s, as a young man, I was on the board here, and I had to call the bishop’s aide. Until then, we were RKHC Aeolus. The Roman Catholic field hockey club. But that “RK” no longer had any added value. We didn’t see those priests after that, either.
‘And yet my father was annoyed that I went to Victoria after a few years,’ Steens says. ‘Not because he was one of the founders of Aeolus. But because Victoria was not a Catholic club. That bothered him.’
It was the early 1970s, a time when another phenomenon was still the most ordinary thing in the world ‘The balloting committee. That was a serious business,’ says Van Yperen with a solemn face. As a board we would visit families when a newcomer wanted to play field hockey. The main thing was that they were able to pay the contribution. Often we could tell from the house whether they were able to. Too bad for the story perhaps, but I never experienced anyone not being admitted. Field hockey back then was simply a sport for the rich.
Van Yperen (ahead, smoking) during the opening of Aeolus’ clubhouse in 1977. Photo: Dick van Yperen Archive
Forced out by criminal environment
Aeolus had become a fixture in the (Rotterdam) field hockey world. ‘At our peak we had four hundred members. We couldn’t accommodate more on our grass fields, where you were up to your knees in the mud even in the rain. We were less massive than HC Rotterdam, which grew out of three merged clubs in the early seventies. It was friendly, everything was possible. If you were hungry, you could fry an egg yourself in the kitchen. Very accessible, but there was absolutely no money involved. In terms of level it was worthless. It had very little to do with top sport. For performance, you were better off at Victoria.’
In the 1980s, the position of Aeolus changed. ‘The neighborhood was decaying,’ says Van Yperen. ‘There were more and more sports clubs moving away, so there was less social control. Hookers were running around the neighborhood. There was a lot of crime. While you were watching, your car window was smashed. Needless to say, none of that was an advertisement for the club. You don’t want to let your child cycle in such an environment. We had to leave, there was no stopping us.
In retrospect, it turned out to be the beginning of the end. Aeolus moved to the Hillegersberg district, near HC Rotterdam. ‘And that club was doing much better then. Moreover, we got an artificial turf field on which a substantial debt still had to be paid off. And money we didn’t have.’ Steens: ‘At home, of course, we talked about this sometimes. It hurt my father. But Aeolus was really better off somewhere else. That was a fact. Membership was declining, while the sport was growing in the rest of the country.’ Van Yperen sighs, “At one point we had to borrow players from Rotterdam to form another Boys B team.
The AD from 2011 announcing the end of Aeolus. Photo: Willem Vernes
A training club, just like Excelsior
A merger could not be avoided, then. Aeolus merged into Rotterdam at the beginning of this century, except for Heren 1 and Dames 1. ‘That was new, that was strange and everyone thought something about that. But we saw it as an opportunity,’ says Van Yperen. At that time he had already made the move to Rotterdam, where he had also been president for seven years. ‘We wanted to turn it into two training teams. A cooperation like Feyenoord and Excelsior had back then. Our idea was that through Aeolus we could get better players for Women’s and Men’s 1 of Rotterdam.’
Aeolus’ teams promoted a few times and worked their way up to the Overgangsklasse, the second level at the time. But advancement to Rotterdam’s best teams failed to materialize. ‘It became a block on our legs,’ says Van Yperen. ‘Players who normally ended up in Rotterdam’s Men’s 2 were now going to finish off at Aeolus. And we had no recruitment for those second teams. It cost 75,000 euros a year to keep Aeolus on the air and it didn’t pay off.’
So Rotterdam wanted to get rid of Aeolus. The forty remaining members of the satellite club were transferred to Leonidas in 2011, which ‘suddenly’ received two Transition Class spots as a gift. So indeed Van Yperen pulled the plug on the club where he learned to play field hockey and was on the board. ‘That sounds incredibly painful. But I have no regrets whatsoever. There was nothing left of the old Aeolus.’ Steens nods and flips through his anniversary booklet. ‘But I will never forget the club.’
Full house at Aeolus, in the 1980s. Photo: Dick van Yperen Archive
by Hockey.nl
