It’s the gentility which takes your breath away in Eindhoven. This is a city whose football hooligans marched through London last year and trashed Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium before clearing off. Yet there’s a small-town conviviality: Gemoedelijk, as the Dutch call it. Cyclists waving pedestrians through in a place whose lunatic football fringe is feared across Europe.
The lamp-post stickers depicting a clenched fist bearing the word ‘Eindhoven’ hint at the darker side. And then there’s the look on the faces of a group of teenagers skulking in the central station after PSV Eindhoven have drawn 1-1 against Arsenal in a Champions League tie on Tuesday night, as fans drift away.