An Introduction to V.O.C.

Rotterdam Cricket & Football club V.O.C.

 

             

V.O.C. stands for ‘’Volharding Olympia Combinatie’’ and was founded on the 1st of January 1895. As such we take pride in our club belonging to the oldest in the country and we are in fact the second oldest in Rotterdam (the oldest being Sparta, best known as professional football club). This may explain why tradition, style and sportsmanship play an important role in both our history as well as our present philosophy.
During the first decades it was very much the football getting the spotlight. About a century ago our first team won the League Cup twice and this was followed by a National Championship Division West shortly thereafter. In those days, a fair number of V.O.C. football players were regular members of the national team and we even supplied the Chairman of the Royal Dutch Football Association.
During the Twenties and Thirties the club decided to adhere to amateur principles and as such the football gradually found its way into the middle order amateur rankings and that is still the case today. Having said that, we hasten to mention that with more than 70 teams of all age groups participating in the leagues we are the largest football club in the region and one of the largest in the country today.

It took the cricketers a little longer to qualify for the headlines in the papers, but after a shared National Championship during the Sixties, a total of eight national titles were won during the following thirty years. It goes without saying that this was accompanied by many players making their appearance for the national team during many decades and well known Dutch cricket names like Van Weelde, Bakker, Lefebvre and Zuiderent all had their roots at V.O.C.! Almost like a tradition, we meanwhile also supplied the Chairman of the Royal Dutch Cricket Association. Other famous names that appeared on V.O.C. player-lists include former England wicket keeper Jack Richards and as overseas player-coach Nathan Astle, Lou Vincent, Peter McIntire and Merrick Pringle, all players with international status for their respective countries.

    

Being the only sports club in the Rotterdam region which owns its own ground, we were requested to make way for the railway of the new high-speed train during the late Nineties and consequently we moved to a new venue of over 70 acres in October 2003. This gave us the opportunity to start with a clean sheet and this resulted in new facilities that may be considered amongst the best our country offers in terms of amateur accommodations.
Our new pavilion mixes elegance with cosiness and provides a stunning view over nearly all sports grounds, first and foremost the first football and cricket pitches. During the summer months the interior is slightly amended, allowing a separate area for players, umpires and officials during match intervals. From a large terrace one can overlook the square with seven turf pitches, a rarity in this country, from behind the bowlers arm. The view towards the biggest cricket ground in the country is magnificent. From the middle of the centre wicket the straight distance to the boundary is 75 yards and as much as 82 yards is available towards the square boundaries.

Even our first football pitch is slightly bigger than the one in the Feyenoord Stadium!

 

Apart from rooms for medical support and referees on ground floor level, many dressing rooms are available amongst which two large ones that are specially destined for international matches. Player facilities include 4 (artificial) outdoor nets as well as a dedicated indoor cricket hall, the first of its kind in the country. The hall contains three indoor nets, with two bowling machines and a run up for bowlers exceeding 13 yards. Shortly after becoming available, this hall started to serve as winter training accommodation for the Dutch national cricket team and the highlight, no doubt, being the visits that both India and Australia brought during August 2004 when rain prevented play during their triangular tournament in Amstelveen and both teams were only too happy to utilize indoor conditions instead.
It is further worth mentioning that our facilities acquired the so called B-status without delay and as a result of that we have been host to matches of the European Cricket Championships in 2004 and a fair number of home matches of our national team as well.

   

The total number of members is approaching the 1300 level. This requires a dedicated organisation which is headed by a board of eight members, an extremely large number of volunteers and a small group of staff members who work under the supervision of our fully employed club manager, the first one of his kind in the country through a pilot initiative of the Netherlands Sports Federation.

V.O.C. is a professionally run club with excellent facilities, yet we are able to preserve all the charms of amateur atmosphere in the most positive sense of the word, where friendship and sportsmanship go hand in hand.