Page 6 of the March 2014 matchday programme features a highly familiar face for the Euroborg crowd. The away manager’s column is penned by Dwight Lodeweges, a man who had previously stood in the home dugout as the head coach of FC Groningen. Now leading the newly promoted Frisian side SC Cambuur, Lodeweges offers a fascinating, brutally honest assessment of his team’s bipolar season.
Lodeweges notes that Cambuur is performing admirably for a club that had been absent from the Eredivisie for thirteen years. He highlights their impressive home form, specifically mentioning recent high-profile fixtures: “In 2014, we only lost to Match vs FC Twente 2014 and drew at home against Match vs PSV 2014. Not bad.” He also admits that their recent victory in the Match vs Roda JC 2014 involved a fair bit of luck. However, under the sub-header “UITWEDSTRIJD” (Away Match), he addresses the elephant in the room: Cambuur’s horrific away record.
“It is blowing a gale at the bottom of the ranking,” Lodeweges writes, acknowledging the relegation battle. “What puts extra pressure on my selection is that we have played very well in away matches so far, but have not yet won a single away game.” He notes that they had only managed to secure points on the road once all season. As he prepared to face his former club—a team he knew possessed a strong squad with recent additions like Eric Botteghin and Tjaronn Chery—Lodeweges was acutely aware that breaking this away curse at the Euroborg would require a minor miracle. He also fondly recalls the Home match vs FC Groningen 2013, where his Cambuur side emerged victorious, hoping to replicate that magic on hostile territory.
A Look into the Future
Dwight Lodeweges successfully guided SC Cambuur to safety that season, a massive achievement for the newly promoted club. However, his tenure in Leeuwarden would end in highly controversial fashion shortly after this match, when it was announced he would be leaving to join their fiercest rivals, sc Heerenveen, for the following season—a move that sparked intense anger among Cambuur fans. Looking back at this column, it captures a manager fully focused on the tactical puzzle of Eredivisie survival, just weeks before his career took one of the most dramatic turns in northern Dutch football history.