Holland – a mixed season. On one hand, Dutch football continued to be respected and associated with total football. The key figures of the revolution of the early 1970s were still considered the major world players. The national team almost won the World Cup in the summer of 1978. PSV Eindhoven won the UEFA Cup. The next generation was pushing ahead. On the other hand, the cluster of big stars was small and no new player was able to equal them. But the stars were getting older and retirement was coming close: Cruyff announced his own, van Hanegem was left out of the national team, some, like G. Muhren and Hulshoff practically disappeared from sight, and to a point even Johnny Rep stepped down a bit by going from Valencia to Bastia. There was feeling that the next generation was very different – much more physical, almost German in its approach to the game, lacking skill and imagination. Ajax was still trying to rebuild, and although there were signs of improvement, it was not yet a really strong team and not at all comparable to the great squad of the early 1970s. Feyenoord was major disappointment, hitting rock bottom, mostly because of keeping aging stars too long and postponing the start of new squad until it was too late. The rise of AZ’67 was a bit strange – the club combined veterans at the end of their playing days with bright new talent, but it was quite clear that the old players were the movers and shakers. PSV Eindhoven was the not the overwhelming team on European scale and it was clear for some time that they were not to be equal to Ajax and Feyenoord of their great years.
The Dutch, level minded and practical, knew well that a small country was capable of producing big pool of talent and the crème of the country’s football will be concentrated in 3-4 clubs. Behind them down the scale, things were very different. The second division obviously was no match for the top clubs, perhaps was far below most of the first level clubs. Too weak not so much in playing terms, but financially. Clubs like Cambuur.
Standing from left: Dick Lamsma, Jan Ferwerda, Harry vd Ham, Sjouke vd Heide, Gerrie Schouwenaar, André Roosenburg, Johan Groote,
Thomas Haan, Henk vd Vlag.
Sitting: Klaus Roosenburg, Wim Temming, Romke Popma, Jaap de Blaauw, Nol de Ruiter (coach),
Gojko Kuzmanovic, Henk de Groot, Andries Roorda, Hans Westerhof .
Cambuur was 12th, insignificant as almost every second division team. May be that was the reason Holland to run unique promotional system: only the winner of second division went up directly. The second promotional spot was contested after the end of the regular season by four clubs in a mini-league: the participants were the top clubs in different stages of the regular season. No other European country had similar formula and the wisdom of it may be questioned, but reality perhaps left other option. So, the mini-league at the end excluded Fortuna (Sittard) which finished 5th in the regular season. The 6th placed Groningen went to the promotional tournament, along with Wageningen (3th), Excelsior (Rotterdam) (4rd), and MVV Maastricht (2nd). All hopefuls were clearly stronger than the rest of the league – the 7th placed Willem II ended with 5 points less than Groningen – but MVV was much better than the other three – they competed for the first place to the end of the season, building a gap of 6 points between themselves and Wageningen. Which more or less informed the outcome of the promotional tournament: MVV won.
However, it was not clear victory, but clinched on better goal-difference. Excelsior was out of the race, the other three clubs ended with 7 points each. It was the 5:0 victory against Excelsior which gave the edge to MVV and made the lucky difference. MVV Maastricht was promoted – they played first division football before and now were returning from ‘exile’, but the question was were they able to survive? A question for the next season anyway.
There was no question about the winners – PEC Zwolle, another former member of first division, had a strong season, managing to beat MVV Maastricht at the end. 23 wins, 8 ties, 5 losses, 83-31 goal-difference – enough for first place.
Never impressive, PEC Zwolle still belonged more to first division than to second, so it was a relief for the fans. As for relative strength… Rinus Israel was playing his last years for the club where his illustrious career started. More or less, the only famous player in the second division – and his presence was seemingly making the big difference… a bit telling for the relative strength of the Dutch second division. As for top flight, certainly the veteran was not enough for playing significant role. Still, it was great to see the veteran influencing his team to victory.