Netherlands meet Greece at infamous Toumba Stadium, players vomited

Orange meets Greece on Thursday evening at the legendary Toumba‑Stadion, a venue that, according to former international Hedwiges Maduro, is notorious because players had to vomit there. Maduro, who played for PAOK Thessaloniki from 2004 to 2007, recalls the chaotic atmosphere as a unique experience.

Maduro’s grim anecdotes

He says that the stadium can only accommodate 28,000 spectators, but the fans bring it to life with the motto ‘Welcome to the Hell of Toumba’. “It is truly special, even though only 28,000 people can get in,” he tells Sportnieuws.

Maduro describes a derby between PAOK and Olympiakos in which the stadium suddenly caught fire. “If you did that in the Netherlands, you would really have a big problem,” he compares PAOK to Feyenoord and Olympiakos to Ajax.

The rivalry escalated when PAOK‑supporters threw kilos of rotten anchovies into Olympiakos’s dug‑out, a reference to the nickname ‘the Anchovies’. The smell was so strong that the match was postponed for an hour and a half and some players had to vomit.

“That smell is obviously extremely nasty. That went a bit too far, but such situations do give me unique memories of PAOK and the Toumba‑Stadion,” concludes the former international.