The life of Telstar defender Mitch Apau may take an interesting turn. In principle, the 35-year-old defender will be an amateur footballer and fry cook in his own snack bar next season. But due to a remarkable agreement, he may also go to the Eredivisie.
Apau proudly unfolds the wooden panels of the chip stand he and teammate Tom Overtoom own, right behind the North Stand in Telstar’s 711 Stadium. Meanwhile, he talks about his plan to stand in the chip stand himself during Telstar’s home games next season.
Then goalkeeper coach Rick van der Mast walks by. “Look, that man is thinking about what he’s going to do after his career,” Van der Mast shouts. Apau laughs: “Well, I’m not going to get rich from it!” Then seriously: “That plan is great, but it might be thrown in the trash in a week and a half.”
Apau is basically leaving for amateur club Spakenburg after this season, which plays in the Second Division. It’s not due to his physical condition. “I could have gone on for another two years,” says the defender. Yet Apau wants to quit professional football so that he can spend more time with his family in Antwerp.
But he has an oral agreement with Spakenburg that the contract will lapse if Telstar is promoted to the highest level. The Amsterdam native may then join ‘The White Lions’ in the Eredivisie. “In that case, the chip stand will have to wait, because I have to play football myself,” he says.
Telstar hopes to reach the final of the play-offs for promotion/degradation at the expense of FC Den Bosch on Friday evening (kick-off at 8 p.m.). The first leg in Den Bosch ended in 0-0 on Tuesday.
That chip stand, called Mitch & Tom’s Snackhouse, has become a household name in Velsen-Zuid. The idea to start selling chips in the stadium came about a year or two ago. “My wife was with her friends at a match and they wanted fries, but they couldn’t get it anywhere,” says Apau.
The idea only became concrete when Apau and Overtoom got a bowl of kibbeling for lunch at a fish stall parked in front of the Telstar stadium. “We said to each other: ‘You only need a mobile stall and then you can sell.’ Shortly after that, we rented such a stall and agreed with Telstar that we could try it for four weeks.”
It was anything but a success. “We suffered a significant loss,” says Apau, laughing. “I thought: what have we gotten ourselves into? But we received feedback that people did want to come next time. They said: ‘If I had known this, I wouldn’t have eaten at home first.’ With that in mind, we decided to go to sea with Telstar for five years.”
“We had chip producers come to the stadium. It was a kind of audition, where we tasted different fries. It eventually became FrietHoes from Haarlem. The owner is a Telstar fan. That’s nice.”
At Mitch & Tom’s Snackhouse, which is now run by Overtoom’s wife and some family members and friends of Apau, you can get frikandellen, croquettes and “eleven bitterballs,” among other things.
“Yes, snacks do sometimes go to the dressing room, but only if we have won and have a weekend off. Our players like chicken the most.”
In the meantime, Mitch & Tom’s Snackhouse is doing so well that an extra chip stand has been installed in the 711 Stadium to handle the crowds during the play-off matches. “But we hardly earn anything from it. It is mainly a nice hobby at a nice family club.”
Apau, laughing: “I just haven’t stood in my own tent or baked a snack yet. I have something to learn.”
Whether there will be time for that next season depends on Telstar’s result in the play-offs. The North Hollanders are only three games away from their first Eredivisie participation in almost fifty years.
“Of course I want to experience that,” says Apau, who was only active in the Eredivisie with RKC in the 2013/2014 season. “When I signed with Telstar three years ago, I didn’t think I would be playing in the Eredivisie again. I mainly made the agreement with Spakenburg that I can still get out of my contract if Telstar is promoted to cover myself, on the advice of my brother.”
During the away game against FC Den Bosch (0-0) on Tuesday evening, Apau ran into some board members of Spakenburg. “One said: ‘You’re not really going to do that to us, are you?’ I couldn’t promise them.”
“Joking aside: promotion is a dream. And what a story, right. Either I’ll be baking fries next season or I’ll be playing in the Johan Cruijff ArenA or De Kuip. A bigger contrast is almost unimaginable.”