Away Days: I got stoned in Amsterdam & watched Ajax roll back the years | OneFootball

Amsterdam, 7.30pm. Rain hangs in the air, although that hasn’t deterred the scores of people dressed in optimistic late-summer attire.

From the upper tier of the Johan Cruyff Arena, I see 10 Ajax players standing in five pairs. They’re passing the ball back and forth to each other relentlessly, like an out-of-control abacus.

Nearer the touchline, a blond Dutch boy on the cusp of adolescence does keepie-uppies. Not the kind you or I would do, with limbs flailing and balance in constant jeopardy, but calmly juggling the ball between left and right foot.

The big screen hovering overhead counts upwards in increments of 25 and he doesn’t take long to pass 500. This lad must be part of the famous Ajax academy. Surely. There’s no reason this couldn’t form part of pre-match entertainment in England, but it does feel rather unlikely.

In front of me, a couple are each drinking Heineken from plastic glasses. I can smell the hops, as well as the mustard-drenched fried gristle in bread almost inhaled by the man.

He has a classic Dutch haircut: curly, slicked back and unchanged since childhood. You can always spot a Dutchman by their hair.

I wonder where Willem II, tonight’s opponents, are from and am mildly startled to learn they play in Tilburg. I’d always assumed there was a place called Willem. I also assumed my geography knowledge was stronger than this.

To compensate, I think of other European teams that the uninitiated would spend hours fruitlessly trying to find on a map: Everton, Schalke, Real Sociedad, Atalanta, Boavista.

There are still 20 minutes until kick-off. The song over the loudspeaker has the lyrics of ‘Rockefeller Skank’ and the beat of ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, which is simultaneously brilliant and unsettling.

Ten minutes have passed in what feels like an hour. Where I actually was 60 minutes ago was polishing off a joint in a side-street coffee shop.

What followed before, during and after this bog-standard Eredivisie match is one of the more vivid football experiences of my lifetime.

My previous visit to Ajax was a comfortable win over PEC Zwolle two years ago, memorable only for a hack by Jordan Henderson straight out of Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang playbook.

But there’s another reason that game felt subdued. Earlier that morning, I’d floated around the Van Gogh Museum after a slice of Amsterdam spacecake, staring at paintings of rural France and feeling the heat from the depicted sun on my neck.

Straight after, I’d demolished a ham and cheese pancake, one bowl of fried fish and between six and seven Stroopwaffels.

It was an incredible sensory experience, but it left an Ajax itch that wasn’t fully scratched. Like Manchester United and AC Milan, this is one of Europe’s most evocative clubs even in their diminished state.

Their last great side, which romped to the Champions League semis in 2019, was almost instantly dismantled. PSV are now top dogs in the Netherlands, with Feyenoord a distant second.

This match is being played tonight because Ajax are only in the Conference League this year; even that was due to a penalty win over Utrecht in a convoluted May play-off.

But there’s a perverse romance to all this, infinitely more interesting than Premier League clubs stockpiling £50million players. The thought of somebody getting Ajax right again is glorious.

So why get stoned if the football is alluring enough? Partly because you can. Cannabis is not quite legalised in the Netherlands, but small-scale personal use is tolerated.

And also because I haven’t drunk in two years. Alcohol feels so central to the football experience in Northern Europe, but it tended to make football a blur for me.

I’d miss early second-half goals chugging a lukewarm bottle and forever be shuffling to the toilet. Looking back, I was blotting out the senses rather than heightening them.

And all because it was the done thing, rather than asking whether it’s what I actually wanted to do.

Now I had a strong ‘When in Rome’ urge to experience something different. Or, in other words, f*ck it. Why not?

The metro from Amsterdam Centraal starts underground and bursts into light, just as I stop questioning whether I’m feeling anything and surrender to it.

Despite all the bodies funnelling towards the stadium, my normal intrusive thoughts of tripping up slow walkers are absent.

Whenever attending a match abroad, I always get a wave of childlike glee that makes me rub my hands together. Combined with the joint, the refrain from ‘Groovejet’ brushes over my mind – ‘why does it feel so good’.

Delightfully, Ajax have several familiar names in their starting XI.

Thilo Kehrer has fallen upwards since leaving West Ham, which is nice for some. Kasper Dolberg turns out to be an actual footballer rather than solely a Transfer Rumour construct.

Davy Klaasen and Julian Brandt have also meandered their way to Ajax; their pictures flash up on the big screen and both are a shade of puce that goes beyond sunburnt and enters incinerated territory.

Willem have no recognisable names. Which isn’t a problem, but their tactics are also faceless unless their manager has instructed them to curl up into a ball and wait to die.

Wave after wave of Ajax attacks crash against this trembling object, only for the final pass to go astray or the ball to whistle past the post.

It’s probing football, patient and inherently Dutch in its precision. Despite everything, the raw material is still there.

I’m struck by how beautiful the steep upper tiers opposite look, cloaked by a darkness that lends them added gravitas. It’s difficult, almost impossible, to conceive of a daylight match being played here. It would rob spectators of such a life-affirming sight.

The floodgates open just before half-time, as Klaasen and Brandt find space among stick-figure defenders to thrash home.

I miss the second goal meandering around the concourse, distracted by the touch-screen menus. This stadium was built 30 years ago and yet that still feels like a novelty; too sensible for new-build English grounds that prefer scrums at the bar.

Ajax put their foot down in the second half, eventually winning 5-1. The effects of the pre-match spliff gradually start to wear off, although no intoxicant would have prepared me to see Sofyan Amrabat coming off the bench.

I leave after Ajax’s fourth goal to avoid the crowds, dreaming of chips and satay sauce. On the escalators downwards, an elderly British couple cannot believe their eyes at the built-in car park. Maybe they’d partaken too.

By Michael Lee