Women’s and women’s football at asv Dronten is alive

The football association asv Dronten celebrates its sixtieth anniversary on Saturday 25 June. As this anniversary approaches, FlevoPost is publishing a series of stories about the municipality’s oldest association. This third episode focuses on women’s and women’s football.

On Monday, May 21, 1962, the inaugural meeting of the General Sports Association Dronten (ASVD) took place in the parish hall of the barracks camp of the polder pioneers at De Morinel in Dronten. On June 25, the club is officially recognized as a football association by royal decree. Almost twelve years later, the seeds of women’s football are sown in Dronten.

Stand on the ground yourself

A group of ladies celebrating on a comfortable terrace on Queen’s Day 1974 decide, while sipping on a drink, that they no longer just want to do handy and major services for ASVD. No, they also want to be themselves on the pitch.

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

Two women’s teams and five women’s teams

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

Tirsa: “I was six years old when I joined asv Dronten. I was goalkeeper from the first match. I liked it so much that I continued to do it afterwards. She is now the second goalkeeper of the Eredivisie PEC Zwolle women’s team.

Wenke played for PEC Zwolle and Heerenveen (2014-2018), while Amber was invited at the age of twelve by AC Milan (Italy) for an internship, then played at FC Twente (2017) then left for the United States for college and later played soccer in NCAA Women’s Division 1 soccer while playing for the West Carolina Catamounts (2018).

Complete branch

It’s been a long time since a well-known member of ASVD loudly proclaimed that he loves women, thinks football is fantastic, but has nothing to do with women’s football. Where in the past there was often a dismissive response to women’s football, the picture is now quite positive. Every week you see girls excelling in boys’ teams and enthusiastic, technically gifted women shooting the ball hard and flawlessly into the enemy goal after a fine attack.

Women’s and women’s football has been a full-fledged branch of the association for almost 48 years and it is impossible to imagine life without the almost sixty-year-old asv Dronten.