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Basketball in Hoofddorp

Basketball in Hoofddorp

Hoofddorp, what is it? Where is it? What made it possible that basketball exists for a long time in this kind of village? The organization in this article (BV Hoofddorp) was founded more than 50 years ago, which is something that many other basketball organizations can’t tell. Chairman Rob de Leeuw will tell us what BV Hoofddorp is all about.

An organization with a long history

More than 50 years of basketball. How did they start? “BV Hoofddorp was founded on the 1st of July 1966,” according to De Leeuw. “Two years ago we celebrated our 50 years of existence. A soccer organization in Hoofddorp wanted to set up a basketball organization, so BV Hoofddorp was accommodated at this soccer organization and became a basketball organization on it’s own a couple of years later. Right now, 50 years later, we still exist!”

More than just a game

Every organization stands for something. BV Hoofddorp wants to be more than only basketball. “In the 90s we had more than 500 members, which was one of our highest amount of members we’ve ever had. In the last six years, our amount of members has grown from 400 to 480 members. Some of them aren’t playing competition; some of them are volunteers of our organization. We offer all kinds of basketball to our members, for example wheelchair basketball and G-basketball.

Our slogan is that everyone who wants to do something with a basketball is more than 100% welcome at BV Hoofddorp. Around 2014/2015 we said that we are a big basketball team, but we were actually a group of islands. We had our men teams, women teams, G-teams and wheelchair teams. We wanted to combine all those teams. That’s why BV Hoofddorp is more than just a game, it makes one family.”

(Former) players of BV Hoofddorp

This organization also had players who made it somewhere outside of the Netherlands. Many of former BV Hoofddorp’s players are still loyal to this organization. “Our Dames 1 team won in the 80s the Dutch championship, which was an amazing performance. Some of those players are still playing here or became coach at one of our teams.

We also had players who made it to the national team and the CTO team. Esther Fokke is one of our former members, along with Myrthe den Heeten and Evi Dekker. For this season, Evi has returned to BV Hoofddorp. Some of our former men players made it to somewhere else outside of the Netherlands. Sam Huurman played here for a while, and is now playing in Belgium.”

Basketballs’cool in Hoofddorp

It is important to attract young players to this basketball sport. Not only BV Hoofddorp, but also many other teams in Hoofddorp succeeded with that. “A couple of years ago, we wanted to make basketball bigger. We know that when children finish swimming lessons, they will choose a sport. It is important to us that they will choose basketball immediately. If they choose another sport, like soccer athletics or hockey, you lost the attention of those children forever. Maybe they choose basketball at the age of 12 or 13, but that is too late in our opinion.

That is why we started a Basketballs’cool to trigger young children, which is a big success. With some help of many sport services, we managed ourselves to grow from 5 children to 25/30 children. It went so fast that we searched for a second location to practice. We have a location here at the Sportcomplex Koning Willem-Alexander, but also at Spectrum Sportcomplex. The other organization in Hoofddorp, The Challengers, also has two different locations to practice, because of the Basketballs’cool. The third basketball organization Christofoor also has a Basketballs’cool. So we have 5 different locations who offers a Basketballs’cool.”

Goals to reach the highest league in the Netherlands?

As said, more than 50 years of existence. Still, aren’t there any wishes to compete at the highest level in the Netherlands? “We would really like to play at the highest league of the Netherlands. The problem is that we don’t have that kind of organization and expertise to offer that. Around 2000/2005, we considered about what we needed to play at the highest league. This organization can’t do that on its own, a separated foundation is necessary to reach that. So we believe that this organization is good for what it is right now, at this moment.”

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