Gien van Maanen (1936-2023) paved the way for Dutch women’s football

A “beautiful flower arrangement from the KNVB” lay with the coffin of Gien van Maanen, who pioneered women’s football in the Netherlands in the 1950s. “And with that they have more than made up for all the mistakes in the past,” says cousin Yvonne van Viegen (59), who organized the funeral of her childless aunt in early November. The native of Utrecht, born and raised, had died a week before at the age of 87.

The KNVB had previously expressed regret for slowing down Gien van Maanen’s pioneering work. As a child, she played goalkeeper at her parental home on the Neude with football boys from the neighborhood. “I always tackled everything, as long as it was a ball sport,” she said in the NOS radio program in 2019 Along the line.

She started as a goalkeeper in field handball in 1950. She wanted to combine both sports, but unlike the handball association, the KNVB banned a women’s competition at the time: football was not a sport for ‘ladies’.

The combative Van Maanen did not leave it at that and in 1955 co-founded the ‘wild’ football club Herbido, a combined abbreviation of the men’s clubs Hercules, Bilthoven and DOS. Herbido had sixty female members, who had to arrange training and competitions themselves. In the absence of a real football field – clubs and municipalities did not allow this – they trained on the field opposite Bilt’s town hall.

“The first training was completely packed with audiences,” Van Maanen said in the same radio program. “There was a lot of laughter and we received a lot of comments, but that was over quickly. It really wasn’t just running after each other and seeing where the ball came.” As evidenced by the archive photos, she fearlessly threw herself at the ball.

‘The lioness of Utrecht’

The Utrecht sports historian Remco Neu saw images on the Polygoon news and calls Van Maanen a “fantastic goalkeeper”. “Because she also played handball, she had very good reflexes.” Neu calls her “one of the icons of the city.” Her nickname was ‘The Lioness of Utrecht’, he says: “Because women were not allowed to play competitions in the Netherlands, Gien boarded the train to Germany on Friday after work, played in Stuttgart on Saturday, in Düsseldorf on Sunday and on Monday she was behind again. her desk in the office.”

“Gien was one of the pioneers,” said sports historian Jurryt van de Vooren of sporthistorie.nl in response to her death to the NOS. “She was always modest about her role, but it is incredible what she has achieved despite all the resistance. Herbido was at one point boycotted by the KNVB. Gien then founded another association, Holland, so that abroad they thought: oh, this is the Dutch women’s team, we want to play matches against them.” The first official women’s international match was not played until 1971. But in September 1956, Van Maanen already defended the goal in the 2-1 unofficial international match against West Germany in Essen.

“She was a beast on the field, extremely social off the field”

In addition to her office job, the combination of handball and football became too much of a good thing. She had to choose, she decided in 1959. “Quite difficult, but it became handball, because that was where my roots were and that sport was also better organised,” she said in 2018. AD.

In 1968, after 32 international matches, Van Maanen ended her career as a handball goalkeeper. Cousin Yvonne (59): “I was four when she stopped playing handball. I vaguely remember her farewell match in the Catharijne Hall. There was a whole guard of honor when she walked out of the room.”

Remco Neu met Gien van Maanen after an interview in the AD. “She was a bit forgotten. I spent many evenings chatting with her.” “Without Gien, the Orange Women would never have won the European Championship in 2017,” he says, a bit exaggerated.

Niece Yvonne says that her aunt only received free tickets for the last two European Championship matches of the Lionesses that summer after long negotiations with the KNVB. “I went to the semi-finals and the final with her. She enjoyed that immensely.”

‘Too busy with sports’

Gien van Maanen, who had completed secondary school, worked as an administrative assistant in addition to handball and football for almost half a century. First in prison on Wolvenplein in Utrecht, later at the Utrechts Nieuwsblad at the Drift and after more wanderings finally at Aldipress, a distributor of reading wallets. “That’s how I grew up with the Vivaof Dragonfly and the Donald Duck”, says Yvonne.

“Aunt Gien was a sister of my mother, who died much earlier. That’s why my own family was close to her. A partner has not come her way either. “I was too busy exercising,” she always said. She had a very special bond with my two children. For years she babysat one day a week and drove them to hockey and football. Loved them.”

Gien van Maanen was a very sociable woman, say the interviewees. Yvonne: “She also did a lot of volunteer work at the tennis club. That was apparently appreciated, because there were a lot of tennis players at the funeral.” Remco Neu: “A beast on the field, extremely social off the field. When she was still in good health, she shopped for everyone and filled out tax forms for others.”

Gien van Maanen was diagnosed with vascular dementia two years ago. Yvonne: “She has lost a lot of weight since then. Last summer things went downhill quickly. She has always said: ‘If I have to leave my flat, I don’t have to anymore’. She languished in the nursing home. She hated being dependent. So yes, she was okay with it.”

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