Stanley Menzo moved to Amsterdam with his family when he was six years old.
There are examples of racist abuse in this article.
In his first job as a manager, he wanted a goalkeeper who could match his all-round attacking vision. Stanley Menzo fit the bill.
Menzo was at the Amsterdam club for a while. When he took charge, he was an understudy and had only played a few matches.
Menzo went into the first team at the age of 21. The young goalkeeper kept his place for seven seasons, a star of the side that won the Cup Winners' Cup in 1987 and the Uefa Cup in 1992.
Menzo won nine domestic league and cup titles across the Dutch game and in Belgium, achieved with a style that helped change what many thought a goalkeeper could be. He was an extra man who could do more than keep the opposition out.
The years at the top were difficult.
Menzo moved to the Netherlands when he was six years old. The racist abuse began early in his career. He reached a horrible intensity by the time he was at his peak.
He played many games where there were monkey chants, racist taunts, and bananas thrown on the field.
Menzo says it hurt him very much. It feels lonely when you have half the stadium abusing you. I can't imagine how I did it.
Menzo says that at that time, almost nobody talked about racism because it was a regular feature of Dutch football. It made him question himself even though he tried not to.
We didn't know how to deal with what was happening, so we never spoke about it.
Some players didn't hear it. I heard it all the time, even when it was one person. It became normal.
"Maybe my personality made me feel and hear it, and maybe I wasn't strong enough for professional football."
Menzo showed strength. He stood up to his abusers.
The first time was in November 1987, when he was still in his early 20s. He was targeted after another away game.
He was walking across the dressing room to the team bus. A man is near him. Menzo was asked if there were bananas in the box. Menzo put the box down.
"I asked what he said and he said it again," Menzo says.
I hit him because I was not myself.
The first feeling was relief, it was like the pressure was off. The abuse was there throughout the game and again after the game. It was boom.
Menzo hit the man in the face. The man had a bloody nose and a broken tooth.
The opposition team's manager defended Menzo when reports emerged in the press. That's how his mother found out. According to Menzo's biography, she thought the young man would have lost more than a tooth if he'd said it to her.
There was no response from the authorities, and little or nothing was done to stop the racists.
He was playing in Belgium in the 1990s when another banana was thrown in his direction.
Menzo picked it up, peeled it and took a bite, instead of ignoring it as he had done before. The result was laughter.
He says it was a good reaction. It made me feel good and it made the fans happy.
Menzo believes that part of the reaction came because he was more respected by that time. He says it would have been impossible as a young man.
Menzo was standing behind Overmars on the team.
It has been more than 20 years since the former PSV and Dutch international goalkeeper called it quits.
The Black Lives Matter campaign reached new global relevance in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, and he was working on a book with journalist and author Mike van Damme.
The contrast between the 1980s and 90s and the present day is stark. People speak out. They run campaigns. He doesn't think SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA is SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA SALVAGEDATA
Menzo sees progress in the problem.
I liked that I didn't see black people demonstrating against racism, but I saw black and white people. He says that's the whole issue.
If I feel like a black person, I should see it and hear it. Do you hear it as a white person? We have a problem if not. Let's solve it together if yes.
We can use football to change things.
Menzo was appointed technical director of the national team. They won a match for the first time in three years in June.
It has taken Menzo a long time to appreciate what he did in football. He was worried too much about his performances to enjoy success, even though he faced abuse.
He says that most of the time he was only seeing the negative things.
I forgot to see the positives because I was too busy with those things.
He came to work on the book. The title is Menzo: The Battle Under the Bar.
It was a bit strange to talk about yourself in the beginning.
I came to like it because I saw other things of my life and career that I hadn't enjoyed before. You can see that you have done a good job as a player.
Since publication, he has been able to appreciate how others view him.
I never knew they saw me like that, as a great athlete, as a great goalkeeper, and as someone who was always fighting against racism. It made me proud that people thought of me that way.
Menzo still plays football many years after he stopped playing. It began on the streets of Amsterdam.
He was influenced by the football he played on the streets as a child. When the Netherlands lost to West Germany in the 1974 World Cup final, a 10-year-old Menzo was out with a ball at his feet. Even after he broke into the team, he would still play street football.
Marco van Basten was in charge of the Dutch national team from 2004 to 2008 and he worked as a goalkeeping coach.
He was the coach of FC Volendam, which was promoted to the Eredivisie.
He is the technical director of the national team and also the stand-in coach. They won their first game in three years in June, defeating the Cayman Islands in World Cup qualification.
Through good and ill, the love of the game has been his life.
He says that football made him the person that he is.
