Fans of Limburg Lions bite when saying goodbye to emotion on their lip – bustling handball heart of the Netherlands is no longer

« Il Pleut »says Ton Reijnders, looking outside from the canteen of the Sittard city sports hall to the rain. After a long time of drought it comes down with bins. Reijnders (74) finds it meaningful, a suitable frame for what he experiences as a « sad » Saturday.

The Limburg Lions will soon play against Aalsmeer. It will be their last home game ever. Forced, because the board is no longer possible to get the finances together for performance at the highest level. This will at least provide an end for top handball for men in the Limburg region, which is also known as the Westelijke Mijnstreek. BFC (Beek), Vlug & Lenig (Geleen) and – as the most successful of the three – Sittardia flourished at a short distance from each other. The men alone became national champions and seven times cup winner.

In the region, the foundation was laid in Reijnders’ young years for professional football in the Netherlands in 1954. In addition, the handball was highly regarded. Reijnders started in the early sixties of the last century. « The Western Mijnstreek was the center of handball in the Netherlands. What also helped was that a number of influential gym teachers in secondary schools in Sittard and Geleen made students enthusiastic about our sport. »

Extra stands

Reijnders had a nose for the goal. Defending was less spent on him. From 1969 to 1980 he played in the first. « There was no question of reimbursements yet. We simply paid a contribution. If we played European, we helped to make extra grandstands with shelves and fruit boxes after the training sessions. »

In 1980 he had to stop at Sittardia. « The club suddenly wanted to train four times a week. But I was now a gym teacher and taught disabled people in the evenings, so I couldn’t always participate. That’s why I had to leave, although I was a top scorer and captain. »

Reijnders handball in Belgium for a while. Later, like the influential gym teachers from the past, he was one of teachers who made young people enthusiastic about handball. « At the Graaf Huyn College in Geleen we were allowed to give two extra handball hours a week from the management. »

The training there was at the basis of the handball careers of Toppers such as Luc Steins and Kay Smits, who ended up via the Limburg Lions at Paris Saint-Germain and SG Flensburg. Their former teacher proudly: « Those guys still greet me or have a chat. »

In the meantime, Reijnders continued to attend training and competitions. By playing himself, coaching at a lower level and looking a lot, he developed his connoisseurs. Diplomatic: « I saw things that I did and I didn’t like. Since about seven or eight I have been able to choose the man of the competition at home duels. »

Financially it became increasingly difficult, the support became smaller

In the year in which Reijnders was forced to leave Sittardia, a new handball phenomenon presented itself at Sittardia. Lambert Schuurs came from a equestrian family. Teachers at the Bishop’s College Sittard and a friend made him enthusiastic about the handball. After his entrance to Sittardia at the age of sixteen, he soon became a youth international. « At the age of seventeen I suddenly had to make his debut in the first. Before the game I had to introduce myself to my fellow players. They didn’t know me. I didn’t know them. But I immediately scored five times. »

Schuurs (now 62) became a fixed value. Also in the National Team. With more than three hundred competitions, he is still a record international. « Typical Sittardia were the fast counterattacks and a series of excellent keepers. Despite the performance, it was already difficult to keep players at the time. Clubs from Belgian Limburg in particular were formidable competition. In the meantime, expense allowances were paid. More could be earned, also because there was sometimes some in an envelope. »

To secure top handball for men, the Limburg Lions started in 2008. At the same time, a merger of football clubs from the same region failed. FC Limburg never got off the ground due to heated club sentiments. In the handball people stepped over all feelings. BFC, Vlug & Benig and Sittardia decided to continue with recreational sport and talent development. The Limburg Lions became the joint Topsportvehikel.

Schuurs had not stopped for so long and started as an assistant coach. « But in the preparation there were a few boys on vacation. Then I started playing. » Schuurs, now in the middle of forty, played his last season.

The Lions also achieved their successes: they became champions in the Eredivisie three times, won the Bene-League twice and three times the cup. Schuurs: « A strong point was the training, with a good balance between top sport and social career. In this way we were able to participate for a long time. About three years ago I saw it go the wrong side and I had already had a conversation with the then chairman. It became increasingly difficult. The support became smaller. »

De Nekslag came last season after a heavy cruciate ligament injury from the Portuguese Lions player Jão Ramos. The club did not offer him a contract. Ramos could become an assistant trainer, for a fraction of the compensation he received as a player. The Portuguese refused. He argued before the court that the contract for ten months – which he has received every year since 2014 – actually amounted to a revolving employment contract. The judge agreed with him and thought he was entitled to a total reimbursement of fifty thousand euros. It marked the financial necklace for the Top Handball South Limburg Foundation, the engine behind the Lions.

‘Exposure is limited’

For a restart, the new Stimulation Tophandbal Limburg Stimulation was established. Sjraar Cox, from 2006 to 2020 mayor of Sittard-Geleen, became chairman. With the other board members he tried to get the team to work and get financial guarantees for top handball in the region for at least a period of three years.

« We did not succeed, » must admit Cox, who has no background in the sport. « The causes should partly be sought in the recent past. There have been too little back who was actually still participating. Now most of the companies no longer want to sponsors. It is not about huge amounts. Yet they do not let themselves be persuaded. They point to everything: the consequences of Corona, the uncertain economy. A number of companies are of course also limited here in this region, but in this region is also not limited, but in this region is not limited, but in abroad, but in abroad, Media attention and the bankruptcy in 2024 did not help. « 

In February, the Stimulation Tophandbal Limburg foundation announced that the end was for the Limburg Lions. « Thanks to some lenders, the players who were prepared to abandon half of their reimbursements and a contribution from the municipality of Sittard-Geleen, we were able to complete the season. »

It is the honor of Cox to close the books with debts. « We put an end to it in a neat way, without any amounts staying open. » From the players one stops with top handball. The others continue, especially at clubs in Belgian Limburg but also in Germany and Austria. Three players are still looking for a new home.

We put an end to it in a neat way, without any amounts staying open

The last home duel this Saturday will never be a real game. The two teams, the Limburg Lions and Aalsmeer, also met three days earlier in Sittard, for the semi -final of the cup. Then it went right for a long time, and the Limburgers even took the lead a number of times. Only in the final phase did the North Hollanders struck: 31-35.

Now, for the competition, the visitors take a distance almost immediately. Aalsmeer beats the Lions with the weapons that the handball from the Western Mining Region was once renowned: the keeper stops a lot and the club switches rapidly from defense to attack. The cold -bloodedness with which Aalsmeers’s top scorer Donny Vink always finds the net again and again.

The jumping Sittard club mascot, lion Goldy, and a drummer, the home team and the audience nevertheless continue to boost. A group of youthful fans don’t seem to get tired when scanning the slogan « Let’s go, lions! Let’s go! ». It helps little. At halftime it is already 10-20, when the last minute is dawn, there is scoreboard 25-39 on the scoreboard. The speaker calls on everyone to get up and clap for the players, the volunteers, the board and themselves. Under rhythmic applause, the two teams each score once.

On May 17, the very last match against Hurry-Up in Zwartemeer in Drenthe is waiting. The farewell of the own Sittard does not pass unnoticed. One of the volunteers reflects on the disinterested efforts of many and the time that comes. « Never again prepare LED commercials. Never stick stickers of the sponsors on the floors again and pick them up again. Joh, we get a lot of free time! »

Chairman Cox has again publicly recalled how he tried for eleven months with his fellow board members to get and keep the Lions viable. « That did not work for the moment. » Cox wants to keep a little courage in it: « For the moment, I explicitly say. Maybe it will get off the ground again through recreational sport and talent development at the three separate clubs. »

Lip

Reijnders exclaims – as usual – the man of the competition. He chooses Aalsmeer goalkeeper Marco Verbeij, but holds the microphone after the player’s ceremony: « Because other than usual, we do not have one but two men of the game. Our players will not blame me for not having opted for one of them, but for Lambert Schuurs. » The Applause Vit de Tribunes when two club icons shake hands.

Many tears apparently do not flow. It is full of adult supporters who fights against the emotions on their lip. The music does not play further on the mind. In the Stadssporthal at this difficult moment no mourning marches or smartlaps. The queen of the Limburg song, Beppie Kraft, is blamed from the speakers, with her Laot the sun in that heart (Leave the sun in your heart) With the hopeful rule « Everything Kump good again, forget that neet » (everything will be fine, don’t forget that).

The grieving former players think they can fill the released time. « I still tennis. I can do that more now, » says Reijnders. After 45 years, Schuurs now thinks he can really take a little more distance from the handball. « A large part of my life has always been dominated by that sport. If my son Perr (formerly Fortuna Sittard and Ajax, for a few years a player at the Italian Torino) I often had an important game, I often had other obligations. I can now also take my daughter Demi (top tennis star) for longer periods.

To share

Mail the editors