THE HISTORY OF ONE
6
ON the 18th March, 1990 a small group of
gentlemen met in Amsterdam after receiv
ing a letter from "Pa" Dade which read:
"By this letter the undersigned has the
pleasure in inviting you to honour them
with your presence on Sunday next,
March the eighteenth, at a quarter to ten
in the morning in one of the upper rooms
of the Cafe East India in order to discuss
the start of a completely new football
club".
They reached an agreement very quickly in
that stuffy little room. Amsterdam had got a new
third division club. Its name: Ajax.
The origin of the club name? In Greek
mythology, Ajax was the name of a son of
Telamon, the Great or Telamonian Ajax from
Salamis. Ajax was a warrior of great renown and
this undoubtedly influenced the club's choice of
the name, but the rest of the Greek legend has
nothing to do with football! The helmeted head
of the ancient Greek, Ajax, is depicted in the
club badge.
Ajax began in the regional third division
organised by the KNVB (Dutch Football Associ
ation) which had been running since 1899 and
within two years they had been promoted to the
second division. In 1908 Ajax merged with third
division side Holland and three years later they
were promoted to the first division under the
guidance of Northern Ireland internationalist,
John Kirvan who incidentally played in Scottish
football with Clyde in 1909. After two narrow
escapes Ajax were relegated in 1914 for only
what was to be only time in their history. They
returned to the top flight after the war in 1917
and the following year they won the champion
ship for the first time. Ajax repeated this success
the following season and remained unbeaten
over the 30 League matches, a feat never again
achieved by another Dutch club.
There was a decline over the next ten years
until the arrival of an Englishman, Jack Reynolds
and it was he who laid the foundations for the
team which dominated Dutch football in the
pre-war years. Ajax won the championship five
times in the 1 930's and were runners-up once.
Such was the public demand to watch Ajax at
this time that they decided to build a completely
new stadium with a capacity of 24,000. Today
the De Meer Stadium which holds 29,380 is still
used but top games are usually played in the
60,000 capacity Olympic Stadium.
That period of success was followed by a
difficult one with the outbreak of World War 2
which struck the large Jewish community
particularly hard in Amsterdam and Ajax, who
had a large Jewish support, suffered. They had
to try out many young players during that
difficult time and they formed a very small squad
that missed out on the championship in 1946
by one point but won the title the following
season.
In 1954 Dutch football was reorganised with
the introduction of professionalism. 82 teams
including Ajax started a new professional league
resulting in one national Premier Division in
1956. Ajax were the first ever winners of the
new legue set up and it gave the Amsterdam
side its first venture into European football.
They lost out to Vasas of Hungary in the
seconci round but three years later Ajax appeared
in the European Cup again after winning a play
off 5-1 against rivals Feyenoord with whom
they had finished level on points.
If an exact date for the beginning of Holland's
top side domination in European football were
given it would be 7th December, 1966 when
Ajax were drawn against Liverpool. Bill Shankly's
boys were many peoples favourites for the
trophy but Ajax hammered them 5-1 in Amster
dam. they were defeated for the second season
in a row and completed the double for the first
time. In Holland, nobody could stop Ajax, they
made it 3 in a row in 1968 and in 1969 they
reached their first European Final becoming the
first Dutch side to do so but they completed the
double again and reached the Fairs Cities Cup
Final but lost out over two legs to Arsenal.
However, Ajax learned their lessons well and in
1971 they lifted the European Cup for the first
time with goals from Van Dijk and Hoan giving
them a two goal victory over grek champions,
Panathinaikos. Ajax were now Kings of Europe
and had emulted their arch rivals Feyenoord
who won the European Cup the previous
season. 1972 was to be the best ever season for
Ajax. Once again they completed the League
and Cup double and for the second year in a
row, they were in the European Cup Final. They
were defending their title against Internazionale
of Milan and it was this night the world of
football sat up and took notice of Johan Cruyff
who netted twice to keep Ajax's grip on the
trophy.
The previous season Ajax refused to play
Nacional in the World Club Championship but
had a change of mind and faced Independiente
in 1972. They added this trophy to the cabinet
with a 4-1 aggregate result and to add icing to
a wonderful year they defeated Rangers 6-3 on
aggregate in the first ever European Super Cup.
The hat-trick of European Cup triumphs were
