Lost cup final after sixty years still painful for Eagles: ‘should have won’

For Go Ahead Eagles it is today a historic day: after sixty years the club from Deventer is back in the final of the KNVB cup. For the then keeper Nico van Zoghel (now 81 years old) and attacker Wietse Veenstra (79), thinking back to the final of 1965 is still painful. “We should have won that competition.”

In the run-up to the match against AZ, the former players in the Adelaarshorst look back together on the only cup final that the Eagles ever played. A well-playing Go Ahead, without the word Eagles behind it, just did not win from Feyenoord (0-1). “Sixty years later, the telling of the loss is still there,” they both say.

Look below at the performance of Nico van Zoghel and Gerard Somer in Studio Voetbal about the cup final of 1965:

When the final was played, Veenstra and Van Zoghel were both active for long at the first of Go Ahead. Van Zoghel first played at DOS and was persuaded during his military service by then director Wim Beltman to come to Deventer in the summer of 1964. Veenstra went through all the youth teams and made his debut in 1964.

As a 19-year-old boy, Veenstra was especially happy that he was allowed to go to the final. “I was the youngest of the team. It was an honor to play a cup final for Go Ahead.”

Van Zoghel mainly realized how special it was to play this game for this club. “Some clubs are often in finals, but that is unique for Go Ahead.”

“A cup always remains a cup,” says Veenstra about the opportunities of Go Ahead at the time. “Feyenoord had a very good team, but you can always surprise. With that feeling we went to De Kuip.”

“We had good football players and a few real beukers,” said Veenstra. “With the staff of trainer Frantisek Fadrhonc there we were really a good team.”

In the match, Go Ahead made it difficult for Feyenoord, thanks in part to a strong performance by goalkeeper Van Zoghel. “That long was able to keep pretty,” laughs Veenstra. “He saved us well a few times.”

“I played a good game, yes,” says Van Zoghel himself. “That makes it extra acid that you lose that final. In a competition you want to excel – then I just use the words of others – to get a good result.”

In the final phase, Veenstra had a chance to give Go Ahead a 1-0 lead. “It was a flut shot,” he recalls. “No more than a roller on the keeper.”

A few minutes later, Feyenoord started an attack via the right side, after which Frans Bouwmeester made the winning 0-1 on a pass from Gerard Bergholtz.

Disappointed and angry the players of Go Ahead drown. “We thought that the goal should not have counted because the ball had been over the back line,” says Van Zoghel. He has left a sour aftertaste to the goal. “You lose through a decision that does not belong to the game.”

Veenstra recognizes this: “The referee and linesman, who did not run with the ball at that time, probably couldn’t see it well. That is why nobody intervened.”

“We immediately went to the dressing room,” says Van Zoghel. “There we received our medal from then Minister of Culture Maarten Vrolijk.” A medal that he has always saved despite the loss.

The disappointment of then sixty years later can still be felt among both gentlemen. “It always hurts to lose a final,” says Veenstra. Van Zoghel recognizes that feeling: “The disappointment has remained all my life. That will never go away.”

Yet Van Zoghel also has positive feelings about the game: “In the end I also enjoyed the fact that I played a cup final. It remains a highlight of my career.”

Now that Go Ahead Eagles has reached a cup final again, Veenstra and Van Zoghel finally get follow -up after sixty years. “The generation of today must also have something that they can talk about for years,” says Van Zoghel.

Veenstra agrees: “There is a new generation that has achieved something unique. That is why we are out of the books and that’s how it should go.”