Abe Lenstra Stadion () is a
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
stadium, located in
Heerenveen
Heerenveen (, fry, It Hearrenfean ) is a town and municipality in the province of Friesland (Fryslân), in the Northern Netherlands. In 2021, the town had a population of 29,790 (1 January) while the municipality had a population 50,859 (1 July). ...
,
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
. It is currently used mostly as a home ground for
Eredivisie
The Eredivisie (; ''"Honour Division"'' or ''"Premier Division"'') is the highest level of professional football in the Netherlands. The league was founded in 1956, two years after the start of professional football in the Netherlands. It is c ...
club
Heerenveen
Heerenveen (, fry, It Hearrenfean ) is a town and municipality in the province of Friesland (Fryslân), in the Northern Netherlands. In 2021, the town had a population of 29,790 (1 January) while the municipality had a population 50,859 (1 July). ...
. The current capacity is 27.224.
Naming
The stadium is named after
Abe Lenstra
Abe Minderts Lenstra (27 November 1920 – 2 September 1985) was a Dutch footballer and national football icon in the 1950s who played as a forward. He is regarded as one of the greatest players ever to hail from the Netherlands. He was als ...
, generally considered to be the greatest Heerenveen player in the history of the club. Abe was born on 27 November 1920 in Heerenveen and joined the club aged 15 years. After almost 17 years at Heerenveen, he joined
SC Enschede in 1954. He left this club in 1960 to join SC Enschede's archrival
Enschedese Boys
Enschedese Boys is a non-league football club from the Dutch city Enschede. In 1965 the professional team of ''De Boys'' merged with their rivals Sportclub Enschede to FC Twente (both clubs continued in non-league football). Currently ''Enschede ...
. In 1963 he stopped playing football at the age of 42. In total he scored 700 goals in about 730 matches. Abe died on 2 September 1985, he was 64 years old, at the eve of what was to become the only international match to be played in the community sportspark that was to become the (old) Abe Lenstrastadium.
Construction of the stadium
The construction of the stadium started in 1993. The plan was to build a stadium with open corners, but when the construction was well underway the club decided to close the gaps. At the time the building was finished, it had a maximum capacity of 14,500.
On 20 August 1994 the stadium was officially opened by
Prince Willem-Alexander of the Dutch royal family. He made the symbolic first kick-off in this stadium. After the opening the first match started between SC Heerenveen and
PSV Eindhoven
Philips Sport Vereniging (; en, Philips Sports Association ), abbreviated as PSV and internationally known as PSV Eindhoven (), is a Dutch sports club from Eindhoven, Netherlands. It is best known for its professional football department, whi ...
. At the time
Ronaldo
Ronaldo is a Portuguese given name equivalent to the English Ronald. It became a common name in all Portuguese-speaking countries, being also prevalent in Italy and Spanish-speaking countries. People
Notable people known as Ronaldo include:
As ...
played at PSV, this match was his first one in Europe.
Expansions
Because SC Heerenveen kept growing and the results were getting better every year, the club planned the first expansion of the stadium in 2002. The capacity of the stadium was almost doubled to 26,100 seats.
Throughout the years empty spots in the stadium were filled with seats. Together with some other changes in the stadium the number of seats increased to the current 26,800.
In 2011 there was a plan to have another expansion of the stadium, taking the capacity to 32,000. The construction should be ready for the start of the 2012/2013
Eredivisie
The Eredivisie (; ''"Honour Division"'' or ''"Premier Division"'') is the highest level of professional football in the Netherlands. The league was founded in 1956, two years after the start of professional football in the Netherlands. It is c ...
season. The reason for the expansion is the ever growing waiting list for the club's season tickets.
Along with that, more people in the stadium means more income which leads to a bigger budget for the club to work with. However, this expansion was seen as too risky and financially unfeasible.
There were plans to expand the stadium to 29,000 seats over the course of the summer of 2012, however the economic downturn shelved these plans.
World Cup bid
As part of the combined Netherlands and Belgium bi
to host the 2018 or 2022
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...
, the stadium was one of five stadiums in the Netherlands selected by the
KNVB
The Royal Dutch Football Association (, ; KNVB ) is the governing body of football in the Netherlands. It organises the main Dutch football leagues (Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie), the amateur leagues, the KNVB Cup, and the Dutch Netherlands nati ...
to host games. A successful bid would have meant that the stadium capacity would have been increased to the minimum required seating of 44,00
In the beginning of December 2010
FIFA
FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...
announced that the 2018 World Cup would be awarded to Russia. Just before the announcement of the World Cup the club announced that the next expansion would be postponed.
The other four selected host cities in the Netherlands were
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
(
Amsterdam Arena
The Johan Cruyff Arena ( nl, Johan Cruijff Arena ; officially stylised as Johan Cruijff ArenA) is the main stadium of the Dutch capital city of Amsterdam and the home stadium of football club AFC Ajax since its opening. Built from 1993 to 1996 ...
and
Olympisch Stadion),
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
(
Feijenoord Stadion
Stadion Feijenoord (), more commonly known by its nickname De Kuip (, the Tub), is a stadium in Rotterdam, Netherlands. It was completed in 1937. The name is derived from the Feijenoord district in Rotterdam, and from the club with the same na ...
De Kuip and
De Nieuwe Kuip),
Eindhoven
Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,[Philips Stadion
The Philips Stadion () is a football stadium in Eindhoven, Netherlands. As the home of PSV Eindhoven (Philips Sport Vereniging), it is therefore also known as PSV Stadion. With a capacity of 36,500, it is the third-largest football stadium in th ...]
) and
Enschede
Enschede (; known as in the local Twents dialect) is a municipality and city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Overijssel and in the Twente region. The eastern parts of the urban area reaches the border of the German city of Gronau ...
(
De Grolsch Veste
De Grolsch Veste (, en, The Grolsch Fortress, previously known as ''Arke Stadion'' ) is the stadium of football club FC Twente. It is located in Enschede, Netherlands, at the Business & Science Park, near the University of Twente. The stadium h ...
).
References
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Football venues in the Netherlands
Sports venues completed in 1994
Sports venues in Heerenveen
SC Heerenveen
1994 establishments in the Netherlands