A Visit to Our Former Competitor


Once upon a time GVC played in the same competition as Vitesse Arnhem. Back then, GVC was one of the best teams of The Netherlands, and Vitesse was defeated multiple times. Those days are long gone: while Vitesse managed to hold on in the top Dutch league, GVC slipped down to lower levels. Lately, some players went to the Gelredome, stadium of Vitesse, to see what we, as GVC, are missing out.

First, an important disclaimer: Some guys refused to join, and even considered giving up their membership of GVC, as they support rivalry club NEC Nijmegen. Please know that GVC remains neutrality at all times! Next time perhaps we should visit a match of NEC.

Anyhow, on this webpage we present the match report, as written by Sven da Silva, player/goalkeeper of GVC3. As with GVC, Sven used to play at a much higher level than nowadays. In fact, Sven represented the national team of Aruba. One of the matches of Aruba in which he played is reported by the Trinidad and Tobago news paper. Typically, Sven is involved with a penalty – on the wrong side of the pitch; something that also regularly happens in his matches for GVC. So, although the level has changed, some things have remained the same.

Regarding the match report: It should be noted that the website editor has taken the freedom to make some editorial notes, so as to improve the clarity:

“The evening together started with kebab and ‘kapsalon’ at the marketplace in Wageningen. With the Classico and Fenerbahçe- Beşiktaş on the screens, it was possible to discuss everything that went wrong in our own match [editorial note 1: and that, most likely, was a lot]. When it was time to leave, we first had to stop at the supermarket to buy beers for on the road [editorial note 2: there were Bobs, i.e., a non-drinking drivers; so please do not send a letter of complaint about irresponsible behaviour of our football players]. We visited the match with a total of 10 GVC players (Michiel, Daniel and Cameel missing on picture [editorial note 3: and based on the number of empty seats, so were most of the supporters]. After being sent up and down the parking attendants who believed that we were PEC supporters, it was possible to park the car and enter the Gelredome stadium in Arnhem. Fortunately the roof of the stadium was closed, as it was freezing outside.

The match started with a minute of silence for AFC Chapecoense. The football was not uplifting, but the point was not to watch a great match, being together with GVC mates was. After half an hour it was PEC Zwolle defender Dirk Marcellis who kicked Lewis Baker on his heels inside the box. This was missed by CRL7 [editorial note 4: CRL7 refers to Charlie Logan, who likes to wear shirt nr. 7; that is were the resemblance stops] who was getting some beers [editorial note 5: sounds like CRL7 indeed]. He arrived just in time to see Baker score his penalty. Ten minutes later it was the not so famous striker Yuning Zhang to double the margin for Vitesse with a nice header who had some minutes before that already scored an unjustly disallowed goal.

In the second half PEC came back in the game after a goal from their number 22 — something also missed by CRL7 getting beers [editorial note 6: Charlie drinks as fast as Ronaldo runs]. In injury time PEC came close to an equaliser, when a shot from their goalkeeper who joined for a corner hit the underside of the crossbar. The Vitesse counter attack was scored by Nathan. The final score was 3-1, yet for us this was not the end of the evening as we continued drinking beers in Wageningen. It was a nice football day.”