One of the smallest towns to host Dutch top flight football is back amongst the big boys this season, a warm welcome once more to FC Volendam. The Eredivisie isn’t something new for the team from the wonderful tourist town on the banks of the Markermeer Lake, indeed, they have had a reputation for being the yo-yo club of the country. That said, a thirteen year gap since the last up tick would suggest things have been tougher this time around. I guess as money starts to really bite at the top end of any national league, the undercard can struggle to stay with the pace of change, but despite all the obstacles that are thrown out in front of small clubs, they are the lifeblood of the game, and for me personally I was delighted to see Volendam promoted last season.
How we arrive at the club we support at home doubtlessly used to come down the lineage of who our father or parents supported, or at least that is what they would have hoped anyway. If your enthusiasm for the beautiful game expanded beyond the shores of your own land, the team or teams you might have started to follow could have come from enjoying a trip there, or having a friend from that town, or similar club colours to your own, or even a club to club fan friendship etc. Two of the teams I follow came courtesy of the 1974 World Cup Final?! Well the Subbuteo team colours of said finalists, West Germany and The Netherlands. although we always seemed to call them Holland in those days. Volendam is actually in the Holland region. By the late seventies I had obviously got bored with just the choice of these two national side names when playing, and as my horizons grew, once I came upon a Subbuteo team chart, listed under both were a number of other sides. West Germany was Derby County, Hereford United and Ayr United, while Holland was Blackpool. However, the bottom names under both were far more exotic, Cesena from Italy and FC Volendam. Despite struggling at times without any Internet superhighway of information, I tried my best to keep an eye on both of them. A weekly bought Guerin Sportivo, despatched from Italy arriving week behind did the job brilliantly for years. I have written about Cesena previously, and now it is time to close this particular curious circle by bringing Volendam to life.
I had only previously been in The Netherlands for 30 hours in my life (although probably as many hours raked up sitting at Schipol airport over the years in transit), and that was in 2018 when I ventured to Alkmaar to watch Kairat Almaty play a Europa League game. The following day, with hours to kill before my flight home, the only other place I wanted to visit was Volendam. There was no game, but the club shop was open, and it allowed easy access to have a look at their compact but very tidy stadium. As the bus rolled back to Amsterdam to continue my journey homeward, I resolved that if they ever made it back into the top flight, I would love to be at the first home game in the Eredivisie, and that is exactly what I managed, but it wasn’t easy as you’ll discover. Arriving for a 12,15 kick off on a Sunday morning from Switzerland wasn’t probably how I had envisaged my passage, but in the modern world, who cares how you get there, and that was the easy part.
Volendam, with just a population of 22,700 is a small town, in the Edam-Volendam municipality in North Holland, with its sister town carrying the name of a certain, rather tasty and famous Dutch cheese. During the summer months, certainly at the height of the day, I am sure the population swells by an extra thousand at least, as it is a popular daytripping destination from Amsterdam or further afield. The main draw is the harbour area, with its considerable array of restaurants, bars and tourist shops. These are all housed within very traditional old style buildings. Even modern day construction near the harbour must be constructed to a traditional specification, giving much of Volendam a charming, ye olde world feel.
The origins of the town’s name is quite fascinating as it started out as Edam harbour, but in 1357 they decided to dig a new canal a little further north and closer to the Ziuidersee. The abandoned harbour was dammed and used as reclaimed land, allowing farmers to settle, as well as fishermen who hadn’t moved to “new” Edam, resulting in the formation of a new settlement, Vollendam, which translates as full dam. Somewhere along the line, an L has been lopped off, and the town is curiously twinned with Coventry!
If you are headed out to Volendam for a game, make sure you arrive early enough, or stay a little longer to sample the harbour area. It isn’t much more than a ten minute walk from the stadium, and it will also provide you with all the pre-match food and beer you need, as there is nothing in the immediate area of the venue, squeezed magnificently in amongst houses very much in the feel of Lincoln and Rochdale, rather than the complete shoehorned Luton or Portsmouth. Being a waterside town, fish is very high on the roster of grub, and like the Belgians and ourselves, the Dutch seem to like a nice fish and chips, although a rare sortie of alternative trawl is available from carry out and sit in venues right along the water’s edge.
Wiljbroeken (one of the club nicknames, meaning wide trousers- perhaps from traditional fishing garb) started life in 1920 as Victoria, a name that only lasted three years, by which time they had become RKSV Volendam, only becoming the name we know today in 1977 when the club turned fully professional. The club have achieved a Dutch record 10 promotions to the Eredivisie, hence the yo-yo moniker. The top flight highs came in ‘89/90 and ‘92/93 when they finished in sixth place, just missing out on European qualification. They also missed out twice on silverware losing the Dutch Cup Final (KNVB Cup) on both occasions to Rotterdam clubs, Sparta (‘57/58 as RKSV) and more recently versus Feyenoord in ‘94/95, when 7,000 fans headed to the Dutch second city, for a slightly unfair home advantage at De Kuip. This latter Cup Final loss was during Volendam’s longest spell of consecutive Eredivisie action lasting from 1987 to 1998. In actual fact, the two promotions subsequent to this season, in 2002/03 and 2007/08 were just one solitary term in the top flight, finishing second last and bottom respectively. The sole ambition this season will be to fight hard and retain their status amongst the elite and see if they can find a platform to build on.
With this match being the first home game in the top flight for 13 years the high vis orange shirts of FC Volendam were out in force, together with one rogue similarly coloured Rothes shirt courtesy of me! The online ticket site on opening day of public sale more than a month earlier had suggested that very few seats were available and the game looked to be heading for a sell out. That couldn’t have been further from the scenario that unfolded with vast swathes, maybe as many as 1500 in 7400 capacity stadium left empty, which on day one back in the Eredivisie must have been a disappointment.
Getting tickets for games in The Netherlands seems to have become an increasingly fraught thing. Volendam has a website where you can join and choose your ticket etc, but when it comes to actually paying for the brief, unless you have a Dutch bank card it won’t be accessible to conclude the transaction. I am led to believe that the idea is to try and curb hooliganism, but if a hooligan is Dutch and has a bank account he can easily buy as no other checks are made, which seems to render this particular point futile. I was lucky, I have a Scottish based Dutch friend who bought me a ticket.
The crowd might have just been over 6,000, but they were delighted to be welcoming Het Andere Oranje (the other orange, another nickname) back into Eredivisie action. It had all started well the week before at Groningen, where they’d fought back from 2 down to deservedly get a draw. Within minutes of the start of this encounter, a confident home side had pushed NEC Nijmengen back and deservedly took the lead with a well taken goal, perhaps with the visitors’ defence culpable to an extent. That defensive frailty would become a theme as slack marking and poor closing down didn’t just give NEC a way back into the game, by half-time they led. Volendam were creating, but not converting, whereas Nijmengen, a more seasoned Eredivisie outfit, who looked dangerous and useful throughout, were ultimately much more clinical in front of goal. By the final whistle a 1-4 loss seemed a tad harsh for the endeavour Volendam had put into proceedings, but it was a lesson in how quickly they are going to need to adapt to survive, and avoid a third immediate return to the second tier on the trot.
Volendam is a lovely little town, a slight hint of what old towns of The Netherlands used to look like back in the day, especially if the main drag by the harbour isn’t totally overrun by tourists. Taking time to step back in time, as well as enjoy some local fish and beer before or after a game here would be the perfect tonic away from the rigours of city life. Just make sure you have a ticket before you alight the bus in Volendam, otherwise you might leave disappointed.
GETTING THERE
The Kras Stadion is on the edge of central Volendam. As the bus (316 from bus station at Amsterdam Centraal railway station- 30/40 minute trip) approaches the town, the high floodlights are immediately apparent. You can alight at the first stop in the town and follow a long straight road down towards the back entrance of the stadium so to speak, or stay on the bus until the second stop, just as it turns left onto the main thoroughfare through the town, the stop is immediately there. Turn right as you get off, then cross the road towards a little Volendam museum, and then immediately cross to the other side of the main road and walk maybe 500m along past one road end, and at the very next one, you will see the ticket office and stadium down at the end of this narrow road. Stewards will have closed it off well before kick off, and they’ll be patrolling its entrance, so an easy spot for where to turn down. On match day, ticket sales seemed impossible. I witnessed a number of different characters leaving the ticket booth with disappointed faces. The club shop is off limits too on match day unless you have a ticket, so bewarned. Drinks and snacks are available, tap and go, no cash, but at least no need to buy a preloaded card first here.
Football Adventures with James Rendall 