Even under Nazi Germany’s ruthless rule, sport kept the Dutch people going. Football remained largely untouched by the occupiers and attracted thousands in attendance.
But the pitches, courts, and fields also harboured heroes of the Dutch resistance, who fought for the country’s freedom by giving shelter to Jewish families, sabotaging German war efforts, being the extension of the Dutch government-in-exile in London, and standing up to oppression.
During the week in which we celebrate 80 years of freedom, we tell the stories of the resistance heroes who lived double lives on and off the theatre of their sport.
Episode 1: The Dutch resistance hero who sparked his football club's fire
Ad van Eerd
You're a big man when you’re the team captain who wins the club’s first-ever championship. And Ad van Eerd was a big man just like that.
Ad van Eerd, born on April 27th, 1901, started his football career at VV Wilhelmina from ‘s Hertogenbosch, where he formed a midfield trio with his brothers Jo and Piet. When PSV came knocking in 1927 – one year before PSV allowed non-Philips employees to play for the club – Van Eerd knew it was the right move.
PSV had just clinched promotion to the highest tier of Dutch football when Van Eerd joined the club. As soon as the club allowed people from outside the Philips company to compete in the team, Van Eerd took the captaincy and led the team to glory.
In 1928, Van Eerd and PSV won the southern regional competition by eight points and therefore qualified for the championship group, in which they’d face the champions of the other regional competitions: Velocitas from the North, Go Ahead from the East, and Sparta and Feijenoord from the West.
P.S.V., as it was written back then, beat Velocitas 5-1 in the final game of the championship and were crowned champions for the first time in their 15-year history.
“In a brilliant sprint, yesterday P.S.V. crossed the finishing line - if we may call it that - and thereby won the championship of the Netherlands,” newspaper Nieuwe Tilburgsche Courant reported about the victory.
Festivities ensued, and captain Van Eerd took the lead in the owner’s villa. “At Dr. A. Philips' villa, the director addressed the winners, at which captain Van Eerd thanked and instituted a toast to his club and the Philips family.”
PSV would not win another title during Van Eerd’s time at the club, finishing second in 1930 and third and fourth in the championship groups of 1931 and 1932. In 1932, Van Eerd left PSV a club legend.
Career change
But as big a challenge as it was to leave a legacy this big at PSV, the next 15 years of his life would prove to be an even bigger challenge.
After managing his former club Wilhelmina in the late 1930s, Van Eerd returned to Eindhoven and soon decided complying with the the Nazi German occupation was no option for him.
From 1942, Ad van Eerd and his wife, Annie van Eerd-Mutsaers, started hiding Jews in his house at the Wenckenbachstraat in Eindhoven. Together with his neighbours, who owned a hardware and toy store, Le.bo, Van Eerd gave shelter to at least 23 Jews throughout the war. A family of four would not make it after getting arrested by the Nazis, but 19 others survived because of the former PSV captain.
And sheltering Jewish people in need was not what Van Eerd limited his resistance to. In 1944, the former midfielder joined the newly founded resistance group Partisan Action Netherlands (P.A.N.) as a leading member. Not much of Van Eerd, nicknamed the Nail, was documented from his time with P.A.N. until one day after the liberation of Eindhoven on September 18th, 1944.
After the liberation of Eindhoven, P.A.N. rose from the shadows and showed itself in public. Van Eerd and his group took it upon themselves to hunt down members of the NSB, the Dutch Nazi collaboration party. After the risky arrest of Adrianus Wolterbeek, an infamous NSB member, ‘Jew hunter’, and member of the Nazi German intelligence service, resident Piet Bouma wrote about Van Eerd’s first public appearance as P.A.N. member in his diary.
“The first appearance of partisans on the streets! Recognisable by a white belt, destined to assist the Tommies in any way possible, to maintain order, and to lock up the remaining NSB members. Some had rifles, most helmets (from the air protection), and one a giant crooked sabre!”
Factions such as P.A.N. organised resistance actions such as stealing from the Nazi German occupation, sabotaging war efforts, and providing food and shelter to those the Nazis hunted after.
After the war, Van Eerd was honoured by the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre Yad Vashem. Van Eerd, who will forever be remembered as a resistance hero and the first PSV captain to ever win the title, passed away in 1990 at the age of 89.