Women’s and girls’ soccer at ASV Dronten is still alive

ASV Dronten celebrates its 60th anniversary on Saturday 25 June. In the run-up to this anniversary, FlevoPost publishes a series of stories about the oldest association in the municipality. The third episode is about women’s and girls’ football.

On Monday, May 21, 1962, the inaugural meeting of the General Assembly of Sports Dronten (ASVD) took place in the church hall of the Polish Pioneer Barracks Camp in De Morinel in Dronten. On June 25, the club was officially recognized as a Football Association by royal decree. Nearly twelve years later, the seeds for women’s soccer have been planted in Dronten.

Stand in the field yourself

A group of ladies celebrating on a cozy balcony on Queen’s Day 1974, while enjoying a drink, decided they no longer wanted only to do hand and extension services for the ASVD. No, they also want to be in the field themselves.

At first, only adults will be played. The second team started in 1977, followed a year later by an all-girls team. Successes are inevitable. In 1983, the women’s team was promoted to the main division and three years later the girls’ team 9-12 became champions for the first time. Over the years, the girls have won the KNVB District Cup multiple times.

Two women’s teams and five girls’ teams

In 2022, ASV Dronten has two women’s teams and five girls’ teams in different age groups. Since 1986, girls have also been allowed to play football with boys on one team. Tirsa Post, Wenke Stedehouwer, and Amber van den Berg, for example, prove that this pays off.

Tersa: I was six years old when I became a member of ASV Dronten. I was a goalkeeper from the first game. I loved it so much that I kept doing it after that. She is now the second goalkeeper in the women’s squad at PEC Zwolle.

Wenke played with PEC Zwolle and Heerenveen (2014-2018), while Amber as a twelve-year-old was invited by AC Milan (Italy) to train, then played in FC Twente (2017) and then left for the United States in order to continue her studies There to play football in NCAA Division 1 Women’s Soccer while playing at Western Carolina Catamounts (2018).

whole branch

It’s been a long time since a well-known ASVD member loudly declared that he loves women, and thought football was cool, but it had nothing to do with women’s football. Where in the past there was a derogatory reaction when it came to women’s football, the image is now mostly positive. Every week you see girls excel in the enthusiastic and technically talented boys’ and women’s teams who shoot the ball forcefully and flawlessly into the enemy’s goal after a gentle attack.

Girls’ and women’s football has been an entire branch of the federation for nearly 48 years and it is impossible to imagine life without regret the nearly sixty-year-old Dronten.