Wednesday, September 24th, 2025.
Wageningen. 18:00 – Hoevestein.
Tom invited the midweek team over to his floor this evening for pancakes. Match secretary Kamiel wasn’t coming along to the match, but still dropped by to give his input and, of course, enjoy the delicious pancakes (thanks Tom)! The cooking didn’t go entirely smoothly, since Tom turned out not to own a measuring cup or a scale for the ingredients. On top of that, bits of pan ended up in some pancakes, and in another pan a cheese pancake had gotten burnt, forcing us to dig deeper into the kitchen cupboards for replacements. To make matters worse, the kitchen on the 8th floor of Hoevestein apparently didn’t provide clean drinking water, given the light-brown glasses of water that were poured. As if that wasn’t enough, Reinier dropped the first bacon pancake with syrup on the floor—but still ate it. Poor pig, to end that way, even after death. Enough about pancakes: after doing the dishes, the squad left around 19:15 in two cars.
Nijmegen. 19:50 – Grass field at Keizer Karel, two years later.
For this match, the undersigned dug into the Débaldérin archives to pull up the last encounter with the Nijmegen side at this same place. Exactly two years earlier, on Wednesday September 20th, 2023, the Débaldérin midweek team also played here, on natural grass. Back then we had just enough players, no subs, and the match ended 12–7 for Keizer Karel. We were determined to change that this time.
20:15. After Keizer Karel carefully lined out the field and a short warm-up, the game finally began. In attack: Ella, Marloes, Bart Merks, and Deen. In defense: Anne, Maud, Jelmer Sonnemans, and Tom. Lotte started on the sideline. It may have been the first cold match of the season, but that didn’t hold us back. Débaldérin opened the score with a long shot from the undersigned—flat as the pancakes eaten earlier that evening. Unfortunately, Keizer Karel quickly answered with a chance. They pushed further, and after a shot from one man and a free throw from the other, Débaldérin trailed 3–1. A shot from Bart followed by a conceded goal made it 4–2.
It quickly became clear that Lotte had come in: with two long shots she tied the game at 4–4. Marloes was also in form, repeating the trick with two long-range goals that gave Débaldérin a 4–6 lead. The opponent didn’t fold, however, and pulled back to 6–6 before halftime. During the break we could at least warm up a bit with some cups of tea.
After halftime, goals were scarce on both sides for a long time, until Bart gave us the lead again. Keizer Karel equalized with a distance shot; 7–7. Still, Lotte stayed ice-cold in transition and nailed her fourth and fifth goals to put us up 7–9. A running-in goal and a shot for the opponent shortly before the end made it a nail-biting 9–9. Keizer Karel pushed for the win and upped the tempo, giving Débaldérin a hard time. A clever sliding recovery by Jelmer won us back the ball in attack, and later a defensive block from the undersigned kept us alive for a final chance. In the end, Lotte crowned her superb scoring run with one last goal on Jelmer’s assist.
Final score: 9–10.
With this, Débaldérin’s midweek team sits atop the autumn competition table after three matches.
Goals: Bart (2), Deen (1), Lotte (5), Marloes (2).
After the match, the men enjoyed wonderfully hot showers in the detached locker buildings of Keizer Karel. The women were less lucky—they came home from a cold shower.
Written by Deen