WHY 'VOETBALKAUWGOM' ?

Back in the early 80's my late grandpa went to watch me and my two younger brothers play football at RKTVV, a former Tilburg amateur football club once situated in the city's inner west.   Nowadays of course they completely refurbished and upgraded that ground and made it the home of the Willem II Youth Academy.

And whether we won or lost that rainy Saturday, grandpa always gave us a Werther's Original afterwards. A butter candy he used to call 'voetbalkauwgom' ("football chewing gum"). 

And although his daughter (i.e. our mum) was against us eating so much candy, we of course loved grandpa even more for that.

Soon he also introduced us to Willem II and I think my brothers and I must have been around 7 or 8 years old when he first took us to see a Tricolores match - again handing out his 'voetbalkauwgom'.

Unfortunately, our grandpa is no longer with us, but his voetbalkauwgom stayed - ever since we had our first season tickets in the early to mid nineties - my dad, my two brothers and myself always take the candy with us when we go see Willem II play.  We each take one before the match starts and again at the beginning of the second half.

It has become a bit of a tradition in loving memory of our granddad and when I was thinking about starting this website, there was no doubt in my mind - it was always going to be named... (you guessed it)