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Orange fever infects the Dutch

Dutch fans share a light moment prior to the Euro 2008 Group C match between the Netherlands and Romania at the Stade de Suisse in Bern, Switzerland, on Tuesday. PHOTO: EPA

As Orange fever rises with every goal scored in the Dutch team’s Euro 2008 campaign, lawyers, housewives and school kids become crazed wig-wearing fans adorning their homes, bikes and even their pets in the national color.

Normally sedate suburban streets have been transformed into massive canvasses for row upon row of tiny, orange, fluttering flags. Window sills sport orange flowers — real and fake — and figurines with wild orange hair ahead of today’s quarter-final against Russia.

Many a home and office window displays a banner with the words: “Hup (Go) Holland,” and at least one fan has gone to the extent of draping his whole house in orange, a newspaper photograph showed.

Cars, bicycles and pet dogs are used to display the Dutch sense of soccer patriotism with flags, banners, miniature balls and unwitting four-legged fans dressed up in human-sized orange T-shirts.

And then there are the hats. Hats in the form of road traffic cones. Hats in the form of huge cheese wedges. Tall hats that come with drum sticks and can be used as musical instruments.

“It is a small country, with not so much to be proud of,” said Ruud Stokvis, sport psychologist at the Mulier Institute in the southern city of Hertogenbosch. “This is something that attracts the attention of the rest of the world. People are showing their Dutchness.”

While the Dutch are well-known for the intensity of their support, Stokvis says it is the numbers that are more astounding.

“In the Netherlands, we have more people interested in football, more soccer players in relation to our population, than probably any other country in Europe,” Stokvis said.

He said about one million people out of a population of 16 million, more than 6 percent, were active in soccer.

“Because of that, there is great involvement in what our soccer players are doing,” he said.

Retailers are certainly not complaining.

The Dutch are spending millions of euros of their hard-earned cash on such non-essentials as face paint and hooters.

Among the most popular is a T-shirt with the face of a benign-looking lion on the front, until a special flap is lifted to transform it into a roaring wild animal complete with sharp fangs.

One supermarket chain is presenting its customers with a small plastic toy lion with brush-able hair with every purchase over 15 euros. The lion is Holland’s national symbol.

An optometry chain has reported a surge in demand for its orange-framed glasses — both play and prescription.

Last week, tens of thousands of Dutch fans descended on the Swiss town of Bern for their team’s 4-1 thumping of France, despite many of them not having a ticket.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Dutch fan Nick Withag, one of the ticketless.

As churches open their doors to the soccer faithful, showing matches on big screens, and additional outdoor viewing areas are set aside around the country, the Dutch hospitality industry has warned that staff who call in sick can expect a check-up visit at home.

And for those further afield, broadcaster Radio Nederland announced it has bought extra frequencies to broadcast today’s quarter-final all around the world.,
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