Koninklijke Haarlemsche Football Club (Royal Haarlem Football Club) 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 ...

club based in

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...

, Netherlands. It is the oldest existing club in Dutch football, founded by Pim Mulier in 1879. During the club's early years the team only played rugby but due to financial problems they then switched to association football. The first official football match in the Netherlands was played in 1886 between HFC and Amsterdam Sport. The club currently play in the Tweede Divisie (Second Division), a semi-professional tier re-established for the 2016–17 season, which is the third tier of the Dutch football pyramid and the highest non-pro league.

History

Koninklijke or (, Dutch for 'royal') is an honorary title given to certain companies and non-profit organisations in the Netherlands and to a lesser extent Belgium, by the monarchs of each country. It was first introduced by Louis Bonaparte in 1807, then Ki ...

HFC was the first Dutch Rugby club, established on 15 September 1879 by the 14-year-old Pim Mulier, who first encountered the sport in 1870. However HFC switched to association football in 1883. (The ''Delftsche Studenten Rugby Club'' was the first official rugby club on 24 September 1918.) In 1899 they moved from their original ground "De Koekamp" to the "Spanjaardslaan", where they still play their home matches to this day. At that period the Spanjaardslaan (Spaniard's Lane), the east-west road at the southern edge of the oldest public park of the Netherlands, was part of the neighbouring town of Heemstede, but switched back to be part of

in 1927. The Netherlands national football team have played two international matches at the Spanjaardslaan. Both matches were versus Belgium, resulting in a 1–2 loss and a 7–0 win. In the past HFC has contributed several players to the Netherlands national football team. Of those players, goalkeeper

Gejus van der Meulen Ageaus Yme "Gejus" van der Meulen (23 January 1903, in Amsterdam – 10 July 1972, in Haarlem) was a Dutch Association football, football Goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper. One of the most popular Dutch sportsmen of the 1920s–1930s ...

obtained the most caps, 54. At present his grandson still plays for HFC. Before the Dutch championship was officially established, HFC won three unofficial national titles: * 1889–1890 * 1892–1893 * 1894–1895 Three times in the club's history they have won the

KNVB Cup The KNVB Beker (; en, KNVB Cup), branded as the TOTO KNVB Beker for sponsorship reasons, is a competition in the Netherlands organized by the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) since 1898. It was based on the format of the English FA Cup. Ou ...

(1904, 1913 and 1915). In the cup competition of 1903–1904 HFC beat VVV from Amsterdam 25–0, which still remains a record score in the Dutch cup competition. The club was named Koninklijk (Royal) in 1959, 80 years after the club was founded. Since 1923 the first team of HFC plays the opening match of a new year versus a selection of former Dutch international players on 1 January.

Current squad

References

{{Rugby union in the Netherlands Koninklijke HFC Football clubs in the Netherlands Football clubs in Haarlem Sports clubs in Haarlem History of Haarlem Association football clubs established in 1879 1879 establishments in the Netherlands Organisations based in the Netherlands with royal patronage Defunct rugby union teams Defunct sports teams in the Netherlands

History

Current squad

See also

References