De Kuip: Proper. Stadion Feijenoord and footballing authenticity.

Words: Han Balk

Images: Han Balk

Stadion Feijenoord aka De Kuip.

Football fans will never agree on which club is the most beautiful, and that’s just as well. Your own club is always the most beautiful one.

But if you ask a Dutch football romantic or a groundhopper about the most beautiful stadium in the country, you’ll get very different answers.

Where English distinguishes between a ground and a stadium, the Dutch only know the “stadion”. According to Van Dale’s Dutch dictionary: a sports ground surrounded by stands.

©Han Balk/ Terrace Edition. De Kuip. Rotterdam.

One half will say Stadion Feijenoord in Rotterdam, and the other half will likely say De Adelaarshorst in Deventer.

It’s a matter of taste. The two stadiums can’t really be compared—if only because of their capacities: 47,500 versus just under 10,000 at De Adelaarshorst, home of Go Ahead Eagles.

Either ground or stadium, one things that many fans can agree on is that De Kuip is what the English call “proper”.

Stadion Feijenoord, unlike the club Feyenoord, spelled with an “ij” as it is still officially called, opened in March 1937. One of its inspirations was Arsenal’s Highbury, which already had a multi-tier stand built in the 1930s.

The stadium owes its nickname De Kuip (“The Tub”) to its, for the time, distinctive rounded shape. Clearly visible behind the goals, but the long sides also curve slightly. The use of concrete and glass was also quite remarkable back then.

The fact that De Kuip still stands after 88 years is not something to take for granted. During WWII, the enormous steel structure caught the attention of the Nazis and narrowly escaped ending up as part of Hitler’s war machine.

In the 1980s, Netherland wanted to host the Olympic Games, and the new Olympic stadium was supposed to be built on the site of Stadion Feijenoord. But the 1992 Games went to Barcelona, and De Kuip remained De Kuip.

Concrete decay was the next threat, but instead of demolition, the stadium was renovated, and De Kuip once again weathered the storm.

Even in the 21st century, it’s been anything but calm around the stadium in Rotterdam South. A large new multifunctional stadium was planned for the city, but in the end, that didn’t happen either. Still, Stadion Feijenoord faces significant running costs.

For many years, the Dutch national team played most of its home games here, but now “Oranje” alternates between the Johan Cruijff ArenA in Amsterdam and De Kuip. It’s worth noting, though, that results in the Rotterdam stadium have been significantly better.

Lacking a true national stadium like Wembley or Berlin’s Olympiastadion, the Feyenoord stadium has also hosted the KNVB Cup final for about 40 years. This Easter Monday, AZ Alkmaar and Go Ahead Eagles will face off on the pitch in Rotterdam South.

Stadion Feijenoord has also frequently hosted concerts over the past decades. I saw various performances there by The Rolling Stones, U2, and Bruce Springsteen.

In total, ten European finals have been played in De Kuip. Teams like Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa, Everton, and Manchester United hold fond memories of a night in Rotterdam.

Resident club Feyenoord won the Intercontinental Cup there in 1970 and lifted the UEFA Cup at home in both 1974 and 2002.

The 2002 UEFA Cup final between Feyenoord and Borussia Dortmund was the last European final hosted in De Kuip to date. And as for concerts—those no longer take place here either.

Even though the handmade banner ‘Red De Kuip’ (“Save De Kuip”) has been hanging for years, it seems only a matter of time before a new plan for a replacement comes to the table.

It seems the Feyenoord fans will have to keep reminding everyone of their proper football temple by the Maas.