Ajax Vs Feyenoord: The Enduring Rivalry
Ajax and Feyenoord Rivalry: Opposites that do not attract
The Ajax and Feyenoord rivalry is the biggest in Dutch football and one of the fiercest in the world.
Known as “De Klassieker”, the rivalry pits the two largest cities in the country against each other – Amsterdam, the cosmopolitan tourist centre of the country, the city of artists, dreamers, and bureaucracy: and Rotterdam, home to the biggest port in Europe, the city of dockers, workers, sweat, and toil.
According to a famous Dutch saying
“While Amsterdam dreams, Rotterdam works”
This quote explains the difference in ethos on the field.
Honest, workmanlike Feyenoord against the perceived flashy arrogance of Ajax, with both teams home to some of the greatest Dutch players of all time.
This, then, is a rivalry that goes beyond the football field and touches on competing ideals. How one should live one’s life, and what it means to be Dutch. Rob Francis explores one of the biggest rivalries in Football.
Ajax vs. Feyenoord: A Troubled Past
In recent years De Klassieker has taken place without away fans, and although the atmosphere suffers as a result, the reasons are plain to see.
Since the 1970s the fixture has been notorious for violent clashes between rival supporters.
In 1997, one Ajax fan, Carlo Picornie, was beaten to death, and players have been attacked, even during reserve games.
In 2009, with crowd trouble becoming increasingly commonplace, the mayors of the two cities took the decision to ban visiting fans from the fixture for the next five seasons – a ban which was extended after further crowd trouble during the 2014 Dutch Cup Final.
Over time, such bans even spread to the home ends.
In 2016 the Ajax ultra-group VAK410 was banned from the home game with Feyenoord after hanging an effigy of Feyenoord goalkeeper Kenneth Vermeer, formerly of Ajax, from the stands.
Even amateur football is not immune, the reach of the world’s most popular sport stretches far from the professional ranks.
In May 2019, a match between Amsterdam-based club AVV Swift and SC Feyenoord was marred by trouble between Ajax and Feyenoord hooligans, and a match between the two clubs’ under-19 sides had to be halted and replayed without fans after several incidents.
The Eurofan heads to Amsterdam with KSI for Ajax v Feyenoord.
A History of the Ajax & Feyenoord rivalry
If you ask a fan of either club today why they dislike the other, you will likely be met with a careless shrug of the shoulders.
If you grow up as an Ajax fan, it is a given that you will “hate” Feyenoord, and vice versa. As with many sporting rivalries, the reasons for such hatred – and “hatred” really is the operative word – are often lost in the midst of time, with the rivalry taking on a life of its own each season, self-perpetuating every year.
Some football rivalries are deliberately hyped by the media, but De Klassieker needs no additional bluster.
That the two clubs would build up a fierce rivalry was probably written in the runes after their very first meeting on 9 October 1921, which saw Ajax initially come out victorious 3-2, only to have one of their goals chalked off after the fact, resulting in a draw.
Ajax have by far the better record over time, with 88 victories to Feyenoord’s 59, and of the two it is Ajax who are better known internationally, thanks largely to their adherence to the “total football” ethos in the early 1970s and their iconic leader, Johan Cruyff.
Yet Feyenoord fans are not interested in global recognition.
What matters to them is graft and a desire to see their team scrap on the field, sometimes literally.
Feyenoord hearts are won by the likes of club legend and former Liverpool player Dirk Kuyt “the tireless worker who always puts the team above his own interests.”
The Stadium Race
A race to host the biggest stadium in the country also had a role to play in the early days, with Ajax’s Olympic Stadium and Feyenoord’s De Kuip (“the tub”) engaging in a drawn-out exercise in one-upmanship.
After the latter was built in 1937, Ajax added another tier the same year, before Feyenoord once more expanded De Kuip after the war.
From then until the late 1990s, De Kuip was generally seen as the best ground in the country, its distinctive design gaining notoriety and respect, enabling noise to reverberate around the stands.
This was even recognised on the international level, with UEFA granting it the right to host no fewer than ten European club finals, the most of any ground in Europe.
Even when the Amsterdam Arena came along in 1996, it was De Kuip that won the right to host the final of Euro 2000, although, as Dutch newspaper NBC Handelsblatt points out, this had less to do with any romantic notion of football history, and more to do with the city of Rotterdam investing more in the tournament than Amsterdam.
These days the Eredivisie is monopolized by the big three, the third team of the triumvirate being PSV from the southern city of Eindhoven. In the last fifty years, the big three have won all but three Dutch championships.
This dominance further stokes the Ajax-Feyenoord rivalry, as does the fact that, for the most part, neither club these days is a realistic challenger for European honours.
This being the case, as with the Rome derby in Italy, local bragging rights become all the more important.
The Rivalry that continues to endure
The intensity of the rivalry also has something to do with both teams having little local competition.
In Rotterdam, neighbourhood clubs Sparta and Excelsior have become semi-regulars in the Eredivisie but operate on a completely different scale to their bigger brother across town, whilst Amsterdam is a one-club city when it comes to professional football.
This lack of crosstown rivalry encourages fans to look elsewhere for their polar opposite – and where better than to their historic city rival?
It seems clear that if the rivalry on the football pitch had not been born a century ago, it would have been necessary to invent it.
Europe is peppered with football rivalries, some more authentic than others, but Ajax versus Feyenoord is a genuine rivalry, borne out of 100 years of history on the football field and an intercity rivalry that goes all the way back to the 13th century when both received city status.
Despite all the talk of a Super League, the struggle for the Eredivisie to compete for the best players, and the lack of away fans, this rivalry looks set to endure.
The next page of the biggest rivalry in Holland is about to be written.
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