The winter period in hockey and football always feels like a breather to me. A little more time to look back, to deepen overviews and really put the figures in their place. In such weeks my thoughts often wander to John Fredrikstadt, the founder of football statistics in the Netherlands. Nothing but admiration for his precision, his patience to record every match, every goal, every detail — without knowing if anyone would ever do anything with it. Just some facts about the number magician from Bussum: ▪️ His official first name was not John, but Lion. ▪️ He worked for the municipality of Bussum and was responsible for the maintenance of sports fields. ▪️ In addition, he already put forty hours a week into his hobby: collecting football figures. ▪️ On April 10, 1962, De Telegraaf used its data for the first time, coming from ‘an industrious, data-keeping reader from Bussum’. ▪️ He kept his statistics in thick squared notebooks and cash books. Lying on the floor, searching through piles of newspapers. Fredrikstadt remains proof that true data hunger is timeless. And that large databases sometimes start on the living room floor. 😁
