1.
Heerenveen
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Heerenveen is a town and municipality in the province of Friesland, in the north of the Netherlands. The town was established in 1551 by three lords as a location for the purpose of digging peat which was used for fuel, Heerenveen was not one of the traditional eleven cities in Friesland as it did not have so-called city rights. However, it is now one of the municipalities of the province. The windmill Welgelegen or Tjepkemas Molen is the survivor of seventeen which have stood in Heerenveen. Museum Belvédère, modern art and contemporary art Railway station, Heerenveen Heerenveen is famous for its sporting accomplishments, thialf is also home to the citys ice hockey team, the Heerenveen Flyers. In 2006, the Sportstad project was completed, which included a hall, swimming pool. The Abe Lenstra stadium is unusual because its capacity is larger than the number of inhabitants of the town. One of the few venues that shares this distinction is Stade Félix Bollaert in Lens. Several American football venues, mostly college football venues, also share this distinction
2.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
3.
Seating capacity
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Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats hundreds of thousands of people. The International Fire Code, portions of which have adopted by many jurisdictions, is directed more towards the use of a facility than the construction. It specifies, For areas having fixed seating without dividing arms and it also requires that every public venue submit a detailed site plan to the local fire code official, including details of the means of egress, seating capacity, arrangement of the seating. Once safety considerations have been satisfied, determinations of seating capacity turn on the size of the venue. For sports venues, the decision on maximum seating capacity is determined by several factors, chief among these are the primary sports program and the size of the market area. Seating capacity of venues also plays a role in what media they are able to provide, in contracting to permit performers to use a theatre or other performing space, the seating capacity of the performance facility must be disclosed. Seating capacity may influence the kind of contract to be used, the seating capacity must also be disclosed to the copyright owner in seeking a license for the copyrighted work to be performed in that venue. Venues that may be leased for private functions such as ballrooms and auditoriums generally advertise their seating capacity, seating capacity is also an important consideration in the construction and use of sports venues such as stadiums and arenas. The seating capacity for restaurants is reported as covers, a restaurant that can seat 99 is said to have 99 covers, seating capacity differs from total capacity, which describes the total number of people who can fit in a venue or in a vehicle either sitting or standing. Use of the term public capacity indicates that a venue is allowed to more people than it can actually seat. Again, the total number of people can refer to either the physical space available or limitations set by law
4.
SC Heerenveen
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Sportclub Heerenveen football club currently playing in the Eredivisie, the top level of football in the Netherlands. Sportclub Heerenveen was founded on 20 July 1920 in the town of Heerenveen, Friesland and it changed name twice, first to Spartaan and then to v. v. During this period, Lenstra led Heerenveen to a victory over Ajax in one of the most noted games in Dutch domestic football history. Trailing 5–1 with 25 minutes remaining, the Frisian team inexplicably fought back for a 6–5 victory, by the end of the decade, Heerenveen was in the Eerste Divisie, but found itself relegated again. In 1969–70, the Frisian club won the Tweede Divisie to return to the Eerste Divisie, by 1974, the club was in financial trouble and to ensure its survival it was split into amateur and professional sections, the professional part being renamed sc Heerenveen. In the 1980s, Heerenveen twice made the playoffs, but were unsuccessful both times. It finally reached the Eredivisie in 1990, becoming the first Frisian club to reach the top level, the achievement was overseen by Frisian coach Foppe de Haan. The 1998 semi-final in the cup competition was lost to Ajax, because Ajax and the other finalist, PSV, had both qualified for the cup final, a decision match was needed to fill in the vacant spot for the next seasons UEFA Cup Winners Cup. Heerenveen had to play against the other losing semi-finalist, Twente, Heerenveen won that match in which Ruud van Nistelrooy scored his last goal for Heerenveen. Heerenveen became regular competitors in the UEFA Cup, and in 1999–2000 finished second in the Eredivise, its highest ever finish, and qualified for the 2000–01 UEFA Champions League. The club was led from 1983 until September 2006 by president Riemer van der Velde, a 2010 report by the Dutch football association showed that Heerenveen is the only Eredivisie club that has a financially secure budget. Under the tenure of Trond Sollied, Heerenveen won its first KNVB Cup, Trond Sollied, however, was sacked on 31 August 2009 due to a weak opening of the season and a conflict with the board. On 17 May 2009, the club defeated Twente 5–4 in a penalty shoot-out to win the Dutch Cup for the first time after a 2–2 draw in the final, with Gerald Sibon scoring the winning penalty. On 13 February 2012, it was announced that Marco van Basten would replace Ron Jans, the club plays its home matches at the Abe Lenstra Stadium, which opened in 1994 and holds 26,100 people. Throughout the years, the club developed several plans to expand the stadium. One of the plans was to extend at least one side stand towards the pitch, Due to deteriorating league results and financial limitedness, however, those plans were shelved. It is uncertain whether or not the club will carry them out. Before the move to the Abe Lenstra Stadion, Heerenveen played at the Sportpark Noord, the crest on the club emblem is the symbol of the flag of Friesland
5.
Association football
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Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries and dependencies making it the worlds most popular sport, the game is played on a rectangular field with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to score by getting the ball into the opposing goal, players are not allowed to touch the ball with their hands or arms while it is in play, unless they are goalkeepers. Other players mainly use their feet to strike or pass the ball, the team that scores the most goals by the end of the match wins. If the score is level at the end of the game, the Laws of the Game were originally codified in England by The Football Association in 1863. Association football is governed internationally by the International Federation of Association Football, the first written reference to the inflated ball used in the game was in the mid-14th century, Þe heued fro þe body went, Als it were a foteballe. The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the word soccer was split off in 1863, according to Partha Mazumdar, the term soccer originated in England, first appearing in the 1880s as an Oxford -er abbreviation of the word association. Within the English-speaking world, association football is now usually called football in the United Kingdom and mainly soccer in Canada and the United States. People in Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand use either or both terms, although national associations in Australia and New Zealand now primarily use football for the formal name. According to FIFA, the Chinese competitive game cuju is the earliest form of football for which there is scientific evidence, cuju players could use any part of the body apart from hands and the intent was kicking a ball through an opening into a net. It was remarkably similar to football, though similarities to rugby occurred. During the Han Dynasty, cuju games were standardised and rules were established, phaininda and episkyros were Greek ball games. An image of an episkyros player depicted in low relief on a vase at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens appears on the UEFA European Championship Cup, athenaeus, writing in 228 AD, referenced the Roman ball game harpastum. Phaininda, episkyros and harpastum were played involving hands and violence and they all appear to have resembled rugby football, wrestling and volleyball more than what is recognizable as modern football. As with pre-codified mob football, the antecedent of all football codes. Non-competitive games included kemari in Japan, chuk-guk in Korea and woggabaliri in Australia, Association football in itself does not have a classical history. Notwithstanding any similarities to other games played around the world FIFA have recognised that no historical connection exists with any game played in antiquity outside Europe. The modern rules of football are based on the mid-19th century efforts to standardise the widely varying forms of football played in the public schools of England
6.
Eredivisie
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The Eredivisie is the highest echelon of professional football in the Netherlands. The league was founded in 1956, two years after the start of football in the Netherlands. At the end of the 2015–2016 season it was ranked the 13th best league in Europe by UEFA, the top division consists of 18 clubs. Each club meets every other club twice during the season, once at home, at the end of each season, the club at the bottom is automatically relegated to the second level of the Dutch league system, the Eerste Divisie. At the same time, the champion of the Eerste Divisie will be promoted to the Eredivisie. The next two clubs from the bottom of the Eredivisie go to separate promotion/relegation play-offs, the play-offs are played in two groups. Each group has one Eredivisie club and three high-placed clubs from the Eerste Divisie, in both promotion/relegation play-off groups, each club plays a home-and-away series with the other clubs. The winner of each group plays in the following seasons Eredivisie. The winner of the Eredivisie claims the Dutch national championship, AFC Ajax has won most titles,24. PSV Eindhoven are next with 18, and Feyenoord follow with 9, since 1965, these three clubs have won all except for three titles. Ajax, PSV and Feynoord are known as the Big Three of Dutch football and they are the only ones in their current forms to have appeared in every edition of the Eredivisie since its formation. A fourth club, FC Utrecht, is the product of a 1970 merger between three of that clubs, one of which, VV DOS, had also never been relegated out of the Eredivisie. From 1990 to 1999, the name of the league was PTT Telecompetitie. From 2002 to 2005, the league was called the Holland Casino Eredivisie, since the 2005–06 season, the league has been sponsored by the Sponsorloterij, but for legal reasons its name could not be attached to the league. Within this deal the five largest Eredivisie clubs should receive 5 million euros per year for the duration of the contract, from the foundation of the Dutch football championship until 1954, the title was decided through play-offs by a handful of clubs who had previously won their regional league. The competition was purely an amateur one, the Royal Dutch Football Association rejected any form of payment, the call for professional football grew in the early fifties after many national team members left to play abroad in search for financial benefits. The KNVB would usually suspend these players, preventing them from appearing for the Dutch national team, after the North Sea flood of 1953, the Dutch players abroad organised a charity match against the French national team in Paris. The match was boycotted by the KNVB, but after the assembled Dutch players defeated the French, to serve the growing interest, a dissident professional football association and league were founded for the 1954–55 season
7.
Abe Lenstra
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Abe Lenstra was a Dutch football player and national football icon in the 1950s. He was also a Frisian legend, most notably with the club where he made his name as a football player, Lenstra played for a host of clubs such as SC Enschede, Enschedese Boys, PH, DOS19, WSV, DOS Kampen and vv LTC. However, it was with VV Heerenveen where he first was selected for the Dutch national team, when in 1954 professional football was introduced in the Netherlands the already 33-year-old Abe Lenstra moved from VV Heerenveen to the bigger SC Enschede. It was in Enschede where he missed his best chance of winning the Dutch title. In 1960 he made the move to the rivals Enschedese Boys, with the national team, for which he played a total of 47 caps scoring 33 goals, he struck a partnership with other internationals such as Faas Wilkes and Kees Rijvers. He was known to stand by his principles and objected to play for the squad if he was not selected for the position he favoured. It was Lenstra who put the name of SC Heerenveen on the footballing map, in 1977, long after he retired from football, he was diagnosed with having a brain haemorrhage and spent the remainder of his life using a wheelchair. He died in 1985, just a few days before the first ever match in the stadium that a year later would bear his name. Today, his name has been associated with SC Heerenveen and its stadium. Van Us Abe tot nationaal idool, in, Fryslân, Nieuwsblad voor geschiedenis en cultuur, jg
