In the first of a two-part series, Steve Menary explores the rich history of football in the Dutch Caribbean Islands of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten.
Football in the Dutch Caribbean islands had been withering for years until Curaçao’s victory in the Caribbean Cup in 2017. That win and Curaçao’s subsequent progress to the 2019 Gold Cup quarter-finals were a major fillip for all of the islands once collectively known as the Netherlands Antilles, where voetbal has a long and rich history.
The Curaçao Voetbalbond (CVB) was formed in 1921 and applied to join FIFA in 1932, but only after a battle with the colonial authorities back in Europe, where the Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbalbond (KNVB) refused to recognise the island’s association.
Curaçao was ultimately accepted into FIFA and football began to take off after World War Two ended. In June 1946, the CVB organised a tournament to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Aruba, Dutch Guiana, Colombia and Feyenoord all travelled to Curaçao for what would prove a high point for Dutch Caribbean football.
The tournament culminated in a match between Curaçao and Feyenoord, whose team boasted the likes of Oranje captain Bas Paauwe and Arie de Vroet, who would take over the Dutch captaincy in 1947.
In one of Curaçao’s most memorable games, Feyenoord were thrashed 4-0 as the hosts finished the tournament with a record of 13 goals scored. Goalkeeper Ergilio Hato conceded just once. The following year, Feyenoord invited Curaçao to the Netherlands, forging a link that continues to this day.
Curaçao’s European tours
After arriving in Europe in August 1946, Curacao played nine matches against club sides, winning four, drawing one and losing four. Two games were played against Feyenoord and 54,000 fans watched the second match when the tourists secured a thrilling 3-3 draw in Rotterdam.
The results against Feyenoord attract a visit in 1949 from a Dutch FA party, but the opening match descended into a farce. A contentious penalty decision prompted all 10 of Curaçao’s outfield players to join their goalkeeper on the line. The whole side steadfastly refused to move according to former England amateur international Ivan Sharpe, who was there.
“Finally, a leader of the Dutch touring party entered and, with the agreement of the referee, arranged for the penalty taker to shoot wide of the goal. He was to kick the ball towards the corner flag,” wrote Sharpe in his memoirs.
“This decision was conveyed to the captain of the Curaçao team in the middle of the men lining the goal. He was asked to call out his players, excepting the goalkeeper, on that understanding. ‘No, no no!’ he replied. ‘They wouldn’t believe me, and I don’t blame them. If my own brother told me he would shoot a penalty-kick at the corner flag, I wouldn’t believe him.’”
The match was abandoned.
When actually playing, Curaçao were progressing fast and took the gold medal at the 1950 Central American and Caribbean Games and qualified for the 1952 Olympics.
Prior to the Olympics, the team made another short tour to Europe, visiting the Netherlands and France in late June and early July but experienced mixed results. France’s amateur XI hammered Curacao 6-1 in Boulougne-sur-Mer. A rematch with Den Bosch outfit BVV, who had visited the Caribbean in 1949, was lost 5-1. Results improved and the tour ended with a thrilling 4-3 win over NEC in Nijmegen.
A squad including 13 players from Curaçao and seven from Aruba, the next largest Dutch Caribbean island, arrived in Finland on a high but their Olympic experience was brief.
In front of 3,700 people, both sides missed penalties in the first half before Turkey took a two-goal lead. Aruban Juan Birezen pulled a goal back with eight minutes to go, but the Turks held on. The appearance is a landmark in Curaçao. When team manager Antoine Maduro died in 1997, the main stadium in the capital Willemstad was re-named in his memory.
Two years after the Olympics, the Dutch Caribbean islands were formed into a single political entity and in football, the Netherlands Antilles Voetbal Unie (NAVU) was formed, including Aruba, Curaçao and the smaller island of Bonaire.
Aruba played independently in the 1955 Caribbean and Central American Championship in Honduras. After beating Cuba and Guatemala, Aruba briefly entertained plans of going alone but opted to join Curaçao.
“In the glory days of the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes the team of the Netherlands Antilles consisted of more than five players from Aruba,” says Egbert Lacle, current secretary of the Arubaanse Voetbal Bond (AVB).
The 1950s was a halcyon period for Dutch Caribbean football. In 1955, the Antilles took bronze in the football at the Pan-American Games behind winners Argentina and Mexico. The same year an English Football Association touring party was twice held to draws in Willemstad – the only occasions that the FA failed to win on their 11-match tour.
In 1958, the Antilles were thrashed 8-1 in Rotterdam by the Dutch national side, but the colonial masters were held 0-0 in Willemstad in June 1960.
In the early 1960s, the Antilles went two years without defeat at home and in an unofficial Caribbean International ranking produced by World Soccer magazine in 1962, the Antilles were ranked third. A Caribbean All-Star XI included two Antilles players, Elder and Gil.
A year later, the Antilles finished third in the maiden CONCACAF championship in El Salvador and repeated this performance at the 1969 CONCACAF championship in Costa Rica. Both competitions were preceded by European tours.
The domestic game gathers momentum
The club game also took off in Curaçao. Boosted by star players Hose Constancia and Papie Martina, champions Jong Colombia reached the final of the 1967 CONCACAF Champions Cup and took Alianza of El Salvador to a replay before succumbing 5-3. Entry was decided by a play-off between the champions of the two main islands. Curaçao dominated, but the Antilles’ biggest star was from Aruba.
After starring with Aruban club SV Bubali, Ange Perez had stints in Costa Rica, Cuba, Jamaica, Panama and Puerto Rico before the dashing striker signed for leading Venezuelan side Deportivo Portugues in 1967. Perez was a hit and stayed for six years.
Curaçao remained the strongest side but could not keep up with rapidly developing larger regional rivals such as Haiti, who became the first Caribbean side to qualify for the World Cup finals in 1974.
Across the Caribbean, the shackles of colonial history were being thrown off and Dutch Guiana secured independence in 1975 to become Surinam. The Antilles opted to retain their colonial links, but their power was weakening.
In 1979 Jong Colombia reached the CONCACAF Champions Cup final again and held CD FAS of El Salvador 1-1 in Willemstad’s Ergilio Hato Stadium but the over-awed islanders were thrashed 7-1 in front of a 50,000 crowd in the return.
As political independence movements swept the Caribbean, Aruba joined FIFA independently in 1986. In 2010 the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved, leaving Curaçao to play on alone again and go on to greater success…
Part two to follow…