The ladies team at the 100-year-old Hague-based club PGS/Vogel all love playing football. But the fun is not only about soccer, as we find out.

Captain American Summer Porter shows the team how to go.

With a satisfying swish, the ball passes over the keeper's head in an impressive, hard-corner shot. Women clad in yellow and green are swarming around player Patricia Neys who has managed to score—yet again—in imposing style. This was her seventh goal of the season, indicating that all those years playing soccer as a kid on the streets of Belgium really paid off. "I've only [officially] played for three years—since the ladies' team started," says Neys. "Before that it was just kicking a ball around with my brother."

This quiet revelation makes her Golden Boot award during her first season and the runner up award in 2006 an even more impressive feat.

Recruits such as Pat are typical of the PGS International Ladies team, the only real international Expat women’s football team in the Netherlands. Some players started playing football when they were knee-high, while others first touched a soccer ball during their maiden PGS training session.

Founded in 2004, the ladies international team is part of PGS/Vogel, a soccer club with a history stretching back over 100 years in The Hague. In fact the bright banana-yellow and pine-green uniforms are thanks to The Hague's official city colours. Of the 13 PGS/Vogel teams, four men’s teams and one women’s team make up the international section of PGS.

Made up of over thirty international women from all corners of the globe, members of the women's team describe a love of the game while engaging in fun as the main reason for joining.  Sharing a drink and a few laughs are part of the merriment, regardless of whether the ladies are triumphant or not during the match. 

The social side

 

Valentine's day: Team spirit is high

As the French founding member of the ladies team Carole Emery explains, it’s not only about the soccer, but it’s also about the 'gezelligheid'.

"It's such a cool, relaxed team, "adds Frédérique Belliard, a thirty-something from Martinique in the Caribbean. "It really doesn’t matter where you are from, you are always welcome here," she says. Her three-year-old daughter, the team's Number One Fan, is asleep on Frederique’s shoulder after a hard day's work of waving pompoms from the sidelines, perched on resident coach and manager Nicolas Burniat’s shoulders.

Nicolas, who is leading the women to a solid overall league result for this '06/'07 season, spent his first year as assistant coach reading up extensively on soccer theory.

"I never played soccer, can you believe [it]?" he tells me in a soft French-Belgian accent.

"I just started downloading all I could find on children's soccer in the States and started reading,” he says of his first year as coach in 2005.

All that reading has paid off, as Nicolas seems to know exactly what he is doing, not fazed by the fact that some of the ladies have played for years, including college soccer experience in the US.

"I had the best soccer training ever," says Rebecca (Becs) Jenkin cheekily, a blond vivacious Australian from Melbourne. "I played Netball," she says, her eyes sparkling with this unconventional soccer talk.  And she can afford to smile.  As the resident goalie, she has more than proved her worth, despite only having played soccer for the six months she has been a club member. When asked about what she thought of the team she admits that she was looking for a fun, social club, but was initially intimidated by the high skills level she saw in the team. Plus, she was contemplating beginning a new sport at the age of 28.  However her work at the International Court of Justice in The Hague put her in contact with Nicolas, and his cajoling was enough to make her try.

Australian-Indonesian Erlinda Lee, PGS's other resident goalie, cites the positive attitude and fun drinking buddies as her main reasons to dive in the mud.  When she isn't playing soccer her time is taken up developing a European line of sports inspired fashion for Asics Europe BV. In this, her second year at PGS —and her second year playing the game—Lee is always placed "somewhere defensive" during a match.

Local player Albertine Bloemendal with mascot Callie

'Unofficial' mascot, Golden Retriever Callie can be found frolicking on the sidelines during home games. Owner Jamie Lescinski, rubs her dashing Callie lovingly behind the ear while describing working in Delft as an Ocean Engineer since August 2006.

Jamie admits to playing football since she was five.  "I found PGS through friends who played, through Shell actually," she says, substantiating the notion that anyone in The Hague’s expat social scene, will hear about PGS International sooner or later.

With so many nationalities, sporting abilities and social backgrounds, this team of twenty- and thirty-somethings seem content to spend Saturdays outside in the elements running around on the pitch, shouting words of encouragement to each other and ending the day over a pint of Guinness in town—all in the name of soccer. Or 'dames voetbal' as they say here in Holland.

More info: www.pgsinternationalladies.tk
Trainings: Wednesdays at 7.30, Ockenburgh Sportpark, Den Haag.

23 March 2007

Silvia ten Houten, a PGS international team member since October 2006, grew up in New Zealand as a Dutch immigrant kid. After many soccer-less years, she found out about the international team on Expatica and now attempts to support the team from left-mid or left-wing.

[Copyright Expatica 2007]