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The official programme for thefinal day of this famous Dutch soccer tournament that first started in 1923 and went on until 1970.
This edition featured Heerenveen (with Abe Lenstra), Excelsior, Enschedese Boys and EBOH.
The AROL-Beker was organised by A.F.C., in acrostic honour of the memory of Antoine Robert Onslow van Lierop, an A.F.C. member who had died on 20 December 1922, at only 35 years of age. (His son Tonny, who had been given the exact same official name, was part of the medal winning Dutch hockey squads at the Olympic Games of 1928 (Amsterdam, silver, Tonny did not play in any of the matches) and 1936 (Berlin, bronze, Tonny played in all five matches).) The (first) cup was donated by Gé Bosch, also A.F.C. member and friend of the deceased.
The hosts usually played in the Tweede Klasse, just as their most frequent guests, Zeeburgia. The Whites first entered in 1926 and celebrated a silver jubilee with their 25th consecutive participation in 1950. Zeeburgia were (and are) based in the Watergraafsmeer, where A.F.C. also had played until 1920, and their continuous appearances at the tournament presumably were due to that connection rather than a predilection for alphabetical jokes from the part of the organisation.
Of the regular Eerste Klasse clubs from Amsterdam, record winners Blauw-Wit, who claimed the first trophy after winning five of the first nine editions in 1931, participated 20 times, whereas Ajax, who earned permanent ownership of the second trophy (or the third: the second was stolen from D.W.S. in 1939, upon which they provided a replacement) in 1951, took part in 13 editions; H.B.S. from Den Haag were present more often than either at the tournament normally played at the Zuidel?ke Wandelweg grounds of A.F.C.
Other frequent guests came from the eastern cities of Apeldoorn (A.G.O.V.V. or Robur et Velocitas) and Zwolle (Z.A.C.) – again one might wonder whether the alphabet played a part – but clubs from Rotterdam, where the tournament for the Zilveren Bal claimed both a much longer tradition and a stronger field of participants, did not enter until 1953; by then, teams from such football hotbeds as Bloemendaal, Enkhuizen, Leeuwarden and Tiel had beaten them to it.
To settle draws, penalty shoot-outs were used since 1932, two years after these had first been used in Rotterdam.
After the introduction of professional football in the Netherlands deprived the tournament of any further entries by the likes of Ajax, Blauw-Wit and D.W.S., it continued for more than a decade as an amateur event but increasingly became a financial burden for the organising club. The AROL-Beker was not contested for two years before it was on offer again at the occasion of the 75th anniversary of A.F.C., with the winners of that 1970 edition earning permanent ownership of the last trophy; somewhat inappropriately, Neptunus took it to the Maasstad.
Finally, it should perhaps be mentioned that two of the most famous Dutch footballers ever once featured in the final at this tournament but never at the Zilveren Bal: Bep Bakhuys won the trophy in 1927 with Z.A.C. while his successor as topscorer for the national side, Abe Lenstra, lost the 1953 final with Heerenveen.
21 x 15 cms, program, 8 pages.
1953
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