The house in Emmen was completely covered with orange flags to support the men’s football team at Euro 2020 (2021)
Day-to-day, Dutch people tend not to be hugely enamoured with wearing orange, or indeed celebrating their flag. However, when a national holiday (cf. King’s Day), or one of the football teams are playing, whole houses, homes and streets turn orange. In the province of Drenthe, however, one super-fan’s orange festooned house was vandelised, with all of the flags being cut down.
Hendrik Hidding from Emmen had covered his house in flags, banners, and general orange paraphenalia, before the vandals struck. The resident of the Het Meerveld district will file a report with the police, he says, adding that the vandals also tried to set the flags on fire. As reported by RTV Drenthe.
When the Dutch national team plays a World Cup or European Championship, Hidding traditionally wraps his home completely in orange flags, pennants and ribbons. With the European Championship just around the corner, he had already come a long way with the preparation.
Hidding has now also offered a reward for any information that could lead to the perpetrator. The Emmenaar has now largely repaired the damage: “Because we are not giving up.”
The Netherlands’ first EURO2020 (2021) match will be against Ukraine, in Amsterdam, on June 13. They will then play Austria, and North-Macedonia (also in Amsterdam) in the group stage, before an easy round of 16 win, and emotionally-painful beating in the quarter-finals.
Image via INGNederland on Flickr. License here.
