There are no flowers any more and no remembrance plaque but David Mendes da Silva and Giliano Wijnaldum, the younger brother of the Liverpool midfielder Georginio, know exactly where to stop to point out the spot where Anthony Fernandes was killed. Fernandes was one of Georginio Wijnaldum’s best friends, but on 4 May 2012 his life ended on the Westkousdijk, his body riddled with bullets after a drugs-related dispute.
Fernandes’s life could have been so different. He was, like Georginio Wijnaldum, an outstanding young footballer and could have made it professionally. Instead, his focus on football gradually disappeared and he ended up in the wrong crowd. He got involved in drugs and it ended in the worst possible way.
After the killing, the entire neighbourhood mourned, including David, Giliano and Georginio. That weekend, when Wijnaldum scored for PSV Eindhoven he took off his shirt and revealed a T-shirt in honour of Fernandes: “Rest in peace Anthony. Schiemond passion”.
Schiemond is the neighbourhood where the Wijnaldum brothers, Mendes da Silva (who lived next door) and Fernandes grew up. In 2008, it was ranked as the “most child-unfriendly area” in the Netherlands based on juvenile delinquency, youth unemployment, teenage mothers, disadvantaged pupils, child abuse and children in poverty.
There are 12 rows of council estates stacked on top of each other here, near the Maas River, and it has never been the same since a prostitution zone was opened on the adjacent street, Keileweg, in 1995.
Georginio Wijnaldum was five years old at the time and had just moved in with his grandmother in a small flat. His mother had moved to Amsterdam but “Gini” wanted to stay in the multicultural Schiemond. His friends lived here and he knew his way around. As Giliano, two years his junior and a professional footballer at Sparta Rotterdam, explains: “Schiemond is togetherness and excitement. Schiemond is passion. Schiemond is football.”
Giliano and Mendes da Silva are walking around an area full of dilapidated brick flats with satellite dishes and ornamental birds on the brown, iron-cast balconies. On the streets there is broken glass, broken bits of plastic and broken bikes. Still, Giliano says: “It was much worse when we grew up here.” Mendes da Silva, who played seven times for the Netherlands and is now a player’s agent, adds: “If you survive here, you’ll survive everywhere.”
Both are wearing tracksuits made by Clan de Banlieue, a brand set up by an old classmate of Giliano’s. “So we have to support that,” they say. Solidarity is extremely important for people from Schiemond. As is football. When the boys grew up all they did was play football. On the grass, in the streets, between the flats and on the only football square (made of asphalt) there was.
They even played in the cellars under the houses that used to be easy to enter. It is also where they hid from the police if they had been up to no good, Mendes da Silva says. “In the cellars there were prostitutes and their clients, there were dealers and pimps. Needles and condoms was everywhere, sometimes a gun. You told the young kids to stay away from the needles because they could make you sick.”
Sometimes a boy would walk in with a bullet wound because he had been playing around with a gun. Often you could hear shots being fired, whether that was a settlement among drug criminals or a marital dispute getting out of hand.
For some neighbours a football ending up in their garden was enough to wave a gun. Mendes da Silva says: “First you ran away, on the walkway outside the flats and on to the roof, but you came back quickly with all your friends because you were too curious and wanted to know what had happened. Then the police came and we were all taken to the station. It didn’t matter if you were only 11 years old.”
Giliano points to the flat where his grandmother Francien still lives. There are two small silver trophies in front of the white blinds. He or his older brother must have won them at youth tournaments, he suspects.
People who have lived in Schiemond are often very fond of it. “It really is a fertile ground [where people can develop],” Mendes da Silva says. “A lot of footballers come from these streets, but also DJs and rappers. I know a lawyer and a doctor and some businessmen who grew up here. All the best players in Rotterdam came to Schiemond and it was here the fiercest football games took place. Boys, even the smallest, became tough men here.”
The Wijnaldum brothers were called the “mooiboys” (the handsome boys) because of their handsome smile and cheerful character. “They were the sweethearts of Schiemond,” Mendes da Silva says.
Before he was taken to Sparta Rotterdam Georginio wanted to be a gymnast. He had been inspired by a girl at school who did the most amazing moves and Mendes da Silva was not surprised that Wijnaldum scored with a powerful header after an impressive leap against Barcelona. “He was often making somersaults and such,” he says. “Did you see that he actually jumped too high when he scored that header against Barcelona?
“But he was still able to correct himself and make his head connect with the ball. And his body – and his way of moving on the pitch – is formed here in Schiemond. He was jumping for fun when he was a kid but he also had the street football. It gives you so much. You have to keep your balance slaloming between opponents, pieces of glass and old needles.”
The “mooiboys” often went to Sparta on foot, with their grandmother, Francien, always accompanying them. “It was a 45-minute walk, but she never let me go alone,” Georginio has said.
Francien, in fact, was keen for him to play football rather than gymnastics. “She thought making somersaults was too dangerous and that I would break my back doing that.
“Football was safer. She wasn’t thinking that I would grew up to become a professional footballer – it was more to keep me away from all the crazy things on the streets.”
He has always stayed close to his grandmother and she was there when he signed new contracts and when he played in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
As we walk across the old football square next to the River Maas and with the netless goals, Giliano says: “If I could do it again, I would still want to grow up here.” Mendes da Silva adds: “Definitely. But I wouldn’t let my children grow up here. No way. Even though Schiemond is a lot safer now, since the prostitution zone has been closed.”
They laugh when they talk about the moment Georginio came on for Liverpool in the Champions League semi-final against Barcelona. “Gini was angry, I could tell,” Mendes da Silva says. “He does not want to be on the bench on the big occasions and if he is a fire lights up in him. Just like in the old days when you had to wait for hours to come on again if you lost on this square. You have to stand up for yourself and don’t get pushed around.”
