First blood for Feyenoord

By Berend Scholten

Dutch teams dominated European football in the early 1970s. The national team reached the 1974 FIFA World Cup final, losing to hosts West Germany, while AFC Ajax won three European Champion Clubs' Cups in a row in 1971, 1972 and 1973. However, it was Feyenoord who blazed a trail for that spell of Dutch success.

Island base
Winning the European Cup against Celtic FC on 6 May 1970 was the club's greatest moment since they were founded in Rotterdam as Wilhelmina on 19 July 1908. Originally a church team, Wilhelmina became SC Feijenoord in 1912, taking their name from the island in the River Maas where they were based.

Mushrooming popularity
With the opening of their De Kuip stadium in 1937, the club's working-class support expanded, and by the 1960s they were regarded as giants in the Netherlands, with crowds averaging 40,000. There was no better indication of Feyenoord's popularity than when they reached the 1962/63 European Cup semi-final against reigning champions SL Benfica. Thousands of fans piled on board two giant cruise ships to join the team in Lisbon, while hundreds of thousands more waved them off from the sea front.

Happel mission
Europe was always important to the club, and it was with this in mind that - after winning a league and cup double in 1968/69 - Feyenoord appointed Austrian coach Ernst Happel, and handed him the mission of winning club football's most prestigious prize.

Marvellous team
He took to his task in uncompromising style, building an impenetrable defence focused around 'Iron' Rinus Israel and Theo 'The Tank' Laseroms. In midfield, his side boasted class in Willem van Hanegem, Wim Jansen and Franz Hasil, while winger Coen Moulijn and Swedish striker Ove Kindvall led from the front.

'Enough talking'
Happel was never much of a talker. His most famous statement was a messy amalgamation of German and Dutch: "Keine geloel, fussball spielen" - "Enough talking, let's play football." However, his tactics and his ball skills won him the respect of his players.

Campaign progress
The 1969/70 European Cup campaign started with a 16-2 aggregate win against KR Reykjavík, and was followed by 2-1 aggregate wins against AC Milan and East Germany's ASK Vorwärts Berlin before a 2-0 aggregate win against Legia Warszawa set up a meeting with Celtic at the San Siro.

Israel equaliser
With Happel deciding to leave his young first-choice goalkeeper Eddy Treytel on the bench and give 36-year-old Eddy Pieters-Graafland the nod, Feyenoord went behind to Tommy Gemmell's goal after 28 minutes but were back on even terms four minutes later as Israel headed home.

Kindvall goal
Extra time followed as the teams could not be separated, and the game looked set to go to a replay - there were no penalty shoot-outs in those days - until Israel's 123rd-minute free-kick found Kindvall. The Swede took the ball into the area and calmly lobbed the goalkeeper to give Feyenoord the trophy.

Planes re-routed
The Netherlands went crazy. Fans flocked to Rotterdam airport to greet the team - so many that their flight was re-routed to Amsterdam's Schipol airport. Hearing about that change, the crowds moved to intercept the team's bus on the road back from Amsterdam, allowing the plane to land in Rotterdam after all.

Magnicent moments
The players' coach crawled slowly back to Rotterdam's Coolsingel square, where 140,000 gathered at the City Hall to watch the team show off the trophy. Ajax may have gone on to steal their glory in the following years, but the history books show that Feyenoord were the first great Dutch team of the golden era.