It would take Marnix Kolder an hour and a half to make the 87-mile trip from his home in Westerlee near Groningen to attend training in Deventer, then another hour and a half to make his way back. When he joined the modest, second-tier Dutch outfit Go Ahead Eagles, he told himself that he would only stay for two years at most.
At the start of his second season at Go Ahead, there was one day when the long commute was especially inconvenient. His wife had to visit the hospital. Go Ahead had played a game the previous day too. The session would just be a light one. “It was only running training,” he tells The Independent. “I thought it wasn't important.”
