(Story & Photo by Marco Stoovelaar)
IN MEMORIAM
...Jos Maathof...
(1955 - 2023)
(private photo) |
 Veteran and driven television sports-director Jos Maathof passed away
Nederlands
 HAARLEM (Neth.) -
Jos Maathof, who was a longtime and experienced television-director for sports events, passed away on Friday, November 17 at age 68.
In his long career, Maathof also directed many baseball-games and -tournaments, primarily for NOS Studio Sport.
Jos has been severly ill for some time, but luckily, he also received good news several times and then recovered again.
Unfortunately, his illness also returned again a few times, as it did again recently.
Jos Maathof was born on September 14, 1955 in Haarlem.
After completing his director's training in 1984 at Media Acadamie Santbergen, Jos Maathof began a long career.
In April 1985, he founded his own production-company, called Jos Maathof Productions.
Although he frequently worked for different TV-channels or production-houses, he also worked free lance.
Since 1984, Jos worked for Veronica Omroep Organisatie, RTL Véronique, TV10/Joop van den Ende Producties, NOS, D&D Productions, RTL Nederland, AT5, TROS, AVRO, Eyeworks Sports, Talpa, Sport1, Endemol Nederland and RTL Productions.
For many seasons, up to this year, Jos was the lead-director of the talkshow Voetbal Inside and then Vandaag Inside.
The program began in 2001 as a talkshow under the name Voetbal Insite, discussing the latest developments in soccer and was initially briefly hosted by Ruud ter Weijden.
But soon after, Wilfred Genee became the anchor of the program (except in 2005-2007), which was broadcast initially on Friday, then on Monday.
From the beginning, Johan Derksen was the regular guest and several others from the soccer-scene were returning guests.
After the show was renamed Voetbal International in September 2008, René van der Gijp became a regular guest, joining Genee and Derksen.
In 2011, the show won the Gouden Televizier-Ring, the highest and most prestigious televison award, which is handed out annually to the best program of the previous year, based on votes cast by viewers.
Another name-change followed in August 2015 and the show continued as Voetbal Inside.
The last edition was broadcast in May 2018, as Genee, Derksen and Van der Gijp moved to Veronica (which is part of Talpa TV).
In August 2018, the show returned as Veronica Inside and besides talking about soccer, other news-items also were discussed now.
In January 2022, the format changed, as it became a daily talkshow on another channel SBS6 (also part of Talpa TV) under the new (and current) name Vandaag Inside.
In the new format, soccer no longer was the main-topic, as Genee, Derksen and Van der Gijp now discussed over all news-items.
However, soccer remained an important item of the show.
After having missed several episodes due to his illness, Jos Maathof returned as director of Vandaag Inside in April of this year.
Unfortunately, his illness returned later in the year, but despite that, Jos regularly traveled to Hilversum to be in the studio.
Jos also directed several episodes of the daily news/sports-talkshow De Oranjezomer, which replaced Vandaag Inside in the Summer (July-half August) and was hosted by Hélène Hendriks.
A week ago, Jos was in the studio for the last time.
On Friday-evening, Vandaag Inside honored Jos at the beginning of the program.
Although it was known that Jos was severly ill, hosts Wilfred Genee, Johan Derksen, René van der Gijp and Hélène Hendriks were clearly affected by the sad news, which they had heared earlier in the day.
,,It is a day with mixed feelings this November 17'', Wilfred Genee opened the program.
,,We woke up this morning with a good feeling.
The ratings for the Debate of the Netherlands and our own broadcast of yesterday were very good and we were very happy.
Jos sent me a message yesterday-evening after the Debate and said that he had enjoyed it.
I sent him back, thank you Jos and asked him how he was doing.
And then he said, not well.
I then asked him do you think it's over?
And he didn't respond to that.
And this morning we heard that he passed away''.
Johan Derksen added: ,,Jos was a director who did not irritate.
I never heard him raise his voice.
He never said anything unkind.
He was a pleasant man to be around''.
Before his long career as a director, Jos worked for local radio-station VLOH (Haarlem) and regional radio-station Focus 103 (North Holland).
In his long career, Jos directed many registrations of soccer-games, darts-tournaments (RTL 7-darts), Formula One-races, Jumping Indoor (equestrian) and much more.
And of course, Jos was the director for many baseball-games, either in the regular season, as well as during international tournaments, such as the Haarlem Baseball Week, World Port Tournament and European Championship.
Almost from the beginning, Jos also was closely involved in the Grote Hi-Ha-Hondelul Voetbal Show, an recurring theater-talkshow about soccer in Patronaat in Haarlem with guests and music.
The show began as a hobby-project in 1998 and was created by journalists Paul Onkenhout, Edwin Struis, Simon Zwartkruis, Dick Sintenie and Mark van den Heuvel who hosted the first shows under another name (Aad de Mos Bestaat Niet!) at Café Studio in Haarlem.
The first four still are the organizers and (co-)hosts of the talkshow.
Jos later became the director when it moved to Patronaat.
Last month, on October 6, Jos was active during the 25th anniversary-edition of the show.
In more recent years, Jos also made several shorts about his home-city Haarlem.
Amongst them are ten shorts covering walks to historical locations in Haarlem he made in 2021 for the Archaeological Museum Haarlem.
As a director, Jos was driven, passionate and enthousiastic.
And he knew what he was doing and had an eye for detail.
And he created a pleasant and good working atmosphere, which already started during crew-meetings before the actual production began.
...Jos Maathof in the director's chair in the registration-truck...
...during the 2010 Haarlem Baseball Week...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
On a personal note, I first worked together with Jos in the early nineties during the coverage of regular season baseball-games.
The new station RTL Véronique/RTL 4 weekly broadcast baseball in its sports-show Match.
The NOS also frequently covered baseball in NOS Studio Sport.
I also worked with Jos regularly in following years during several Haarlem Baseball Weeks, World Port Tournaments and European Championships.
Like every director, during the crew-meeting before a baseball-game, Jos always gave good guidelines to his cameramen for not only following the ball, but also of course keep an eye on the batter and runner to ensure he always had the right shot of the action to 'tell the story'.
As baseball was regularly broadcast in those years, luckily, several cameramen and -women were familiar with baseball and knew what he wanted.
During a game, sitting in the registration-truck, Jos always ensured to keep everyone sharp.
And yes, sometimes there was a rare grumble when something went wrong (which by the way didn't happen much), but that never took long, as he never raised his voice.
Jos then choose a back-up shot, kept smiling and hold onto the good working atmosphere.
During some of these baseball-games, broadcast by the NOS, I was the so-called editor-on-site, making notes for the commentator when he was not on the location and later would add the commentary in the studio for the televised summary.
Sometimes, I was sitting in the registration-truck behind Jos, watching him setting the shots, switching them and giving directions.
But mostly, and especially during live broadcasts, I sat in the press-stands besides the commentator, which in those years usually was Andy Houtkamp, Ronald Boot or Frank Snoeks.
Although they were always well-prepared themselves, during a game, I provided them with some additional background- and statistical information.
Sitting on my other side was the title-operator and during some of these live-broadcasts, Jos asked me to check after each pitch whether or not the titles were correct (ball-strike count, outs).
Not because these were done wrongly, but simply because on those occasions, the title-operator was not seated besides me, but was seated in the truck and had no clear view on the umpire and the commentators of course could not talk back to him when the action was going on.
They only could talk to Jos between innings, while I was able to communicate with him directly, listening to his directions (I learned a lot), as I was seated in the press-stands with a view on the field.
And being a very competent director, Jos always wanted to produce the correct shot with the correct information.
In 1992, I also saw Jos in action during a show, which had nothing to do with sports.
Back then, Jos invited me to be in the studio during the taping of one of the early editions of the new RTL 4 program Showtime, which focused on developments in entertainment.
Along with Juliette Enneking, who then worked for a year as an intern at the KNBSB-Head Office in Santpoort, I went to the RTL-studio in Hilversum, where Jos gave us a behind-the-scenes look and explained the working of the green-background-photography (chroma key) and the auto-cue.
And we met the hosts of that new show, Albert Verlinde and Paulien Huizinga, for whom this was their first experience as a presenter.
As everyone knows, Albert Verlinde (who before that had worked as an editor and producer) went on to become a wellknown presenter of showbusiness-related programs and of course, he currently also is a successful musical-producer.
Paulien Huizinga was chosen as Miss Universe Netherlands in 1991, then finished in second place in the international Miss Universe-pageant later that year in Mexico.
In later years, she presented several other TV-programs.
In 2013, she was one of the participants in Expeditie Robinson (RTL 5) and in 2016, she was a candidate in Het perfecte plaatje (RTL 4).
Besides his many sport-activities, Jos also has been the director of several studio-shows.
Like the above mentioned Showtime (RTL 4) in the early nineties and Showbizz (SBS 6) thereafter.
In 1995, he was the director of Oorlogswonderen (RTL 5), a 6-part series telling the stories and experiences of people who miraculously survived the war.
In 1998-1999, Jos was the director of Allround, a weekly game-show, presented by Bert van Leeuwen and broadcast by the Evangelische Omroep (EO).
And through the years, he also has done several music-productions, most of them in Haarlem.
Jos loved his work, loved sports, loved music and loved his home-town Haarlem.
As he lived in walking-distance of the Pim Mulier Baseball Stadium, he regularly attended a home-game of Kinheim there when he not had to work.
When you met or talked with Jos or worked with him, he always has a characteristic big smile on his face and always enjoyed going back to his director's chair for another production.
It has been a privilege to have worked with Jos during many baseball-games.
The webmaster of Grand Slam * Stats & News offers his condolences to Jos' wife Dorien, daughter Yorrian, other family and friends and wishes them a lot of strength with this big loss.
(November 20)
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