The Dutch are so good at football that it’s often forgotten how small a country the Netherlands is. But they weren’t always a force. Before the Johann Cruyff-led ”total football” squads of the early 70’s, they had trouble beating even lowly Luxembourg (ca. 1964). The Dutch top flight is called the Eredivisie. The league has 18 teams, and the bottom half is a revolving door of minnow clubs. But there are some good-sized clubs just below the big 3 of Ajax, PSV, and Feyenoord. Heerenveen has seen their average gate grow from 13, 700 in 1999; to 25,4oo last season. They are a perennial fixture in the UEFA Cup, and did manage to make it to the Champions League in 2000. Utrecht is the only club outside the big 3 that have never been relegated. They have increased their gate from 7,500 to 20,000 in a decade. Vitesse has been drawing crowds in the low 20,000’s for over a decade. Groningen averaged 19,000 last season, in their new stadium. AZ Alkmaar’s new stadium upped their attendance to almost 16,000. They had been playing in an 8,400-seat stadium before.
Wow perfect timing, a friend of mine is moving to Holland soon. I noticed you added another layer to your system. Is the format of the location “dot” supposed to mean anything?
I put in the proportionally sized circles showing kit colors when I can fit them into the map. In some countries, like England and Germany, there is such a clustering of clubs in certain areas that the addition of the circles would impede on the overall look of the map.
Comment by erawk — October 9, 2007 @ 8:45 pm