Orange fever

During the Football Championships and other major sporting events like the Olympic Games, the Dutch supporters are usually the most prominent of all. They are loud, drunk, cheerful and, most of all, eye-catching.

The Dutch usually dressed up in bright orange from head to toe simply cannot be overlooked. Especially during the European Cup and World Cup, whole flocks of orange Dutchies invade the cities where the matches are held, conquering the streets and bars for as long as the “elftal” (as the national team is known) has a chance of winning the cup. Dutch national pride, though usually mute, is most clearly expressed during these events when patriotic passions run so high that it is almost scary. But what lies behind these almost exaggerated expressions of pride and patriotism? After all, the Netherlands are almost too small to be taken seriously, let’s be honest. The sober Dutch live on a small chunk of land they’ve rescued from the sea, nothing to be proud of. So where does this nationalism – fascinating on the one hand and almost absurd on the other – come from?                                    

 When William I, Prince of Orange founded the House of Orange-Nassau in the sixteenth century, orange became the symbolic colour of the Dutch royal family. However, orange didn’t play a major role in Dutch patriotism during the ensuing centuries. Something changed though in 1988 when the Dutch national football team won the European Football Championships for the first time. This victory made us proud of our small country. It marked the beginning of a phenomenon that we now call “oranjegekte” (orange fever). Oranjegekte means quite simply that we dress up in orange. We don’t just wear orange t-shirts, but also orange hats, scarves, socks and underwear. Some paint their hair and faces orange, others decorate their rooms and wrap their houses in orange plastic or even adorn entire streets with orange flags. The industry of products related to orange fever is a gold mine because this phenomenon not only rises before or during major sports events, but also weeks before our national holiday: Koninginnedag (Queen’s Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koninginnedag) which is celebrated on 30 April. We don’t just wear orange; we also eat orange: Dairy companies sell orange custards and puddings, and supermarkets are stocked with orange napkins, paper towels and even orange toilet paper. Crazy and over the top? Maybe. But the patriotic atmosphere is rooted in a little uncertainty and fear. We’re not only afraid of losing the game, we’re also afraid of being forgotten and afraid of losing solidarity. We’re just a small country, and the orange fever is what binds 16 million people together on that very small chunk of what used to be seabed.  

So it may seem funny, absurd or even a little arrogant from the outside, but it’s a deep-rooted desire for harmony and unity that pops up once a year in April and every two years during the football championships. This desire, expressed in the colour orange, is what makes us an individual and remarkable, yet also perhaps a rather bizarre kind of people.