As an Ajax- or Leeds fan you just have to love YouTube
Category:Video
Last week at Search Engine Strategies late at night in the pub Dave Naylor suddenly looked at his phone and looked sad. When I asked him what the matter was he told me his favorite football club Leeds United had just lost to Wallsall. In the First English Division. Leeds once was one of the leading clubs in English Football, being champions ‘only’ back in 1992, when Eric Cantona played in Leeds.
Dave and I talked a little about the football as I am a big Ajax-fan. Now Ajax has always been one of the leading clubs in Europe, but the last decade it has declined rapidly with the last championship in 2004. “Where are the days you could watch a game, sit back and know they will win” I said to Dave. Those days are gone. Tonight Ajax plays Juventus in the Europa League. With a 1-2 loss last week at home chances are they will be out of the cup by the end of the evening.
But as an Ajax- or Leeds fan luckily there is YouTube. The video-channel from Google. Although some Italian judges might ‘kill’ the website if they get there way with the conviction of some Google-bosses in Italy over a video, the site (for now) is a huge resource of historical material. And you can be back in those successful 90s within seconds.
I spend 15 minutes on the site and found loads of fun videos taking me back to the most successful period of Ajax in the last 20 years, one I was part of, living in Amsterdam and visiting many games of Ajax. I found some brilliant videos and some brilliant football. Like the best match I ever saw Ajax play against Real Madrid in 1996:
The beautiful thing about YouTube however is that you also can find a lot of ‘home made’ videos, which give you the exact feeling you had back then. This one for example is taken in the old Ajax-stadium De Meer where I spent a lot of time. The sound and the look of the pitch take you back immediately:
And finally this video from the semi-finals of the Champions League in 1995 against Bayern Munich. The position these guys were in is about the same position (I think I was two/three meters to the left) I was standing during that semi final:
You just have to love YouTube for this. And you have to love the web for this. Without that all I would have are memories. Those were the days. Lets hope that one day they’ll return!
To close it down, especially for Dave two Leeds United videos, just for fun:
