Sparta Nijkerk

Nijkerk sits on the edge of the Veluwe, and De Heurders have been its club since 15 May 1931, when a group of friends started out on a sandy pitch near Driedorp. The field-football side split away in 1983 to stand on its own, first as VV Sparta (N), and settled at Sportpark De Ebbenhorst, room for around 5,350 on the touchline.

The club has never chased the Eredivisie; its honours are a run of promotions through the lower amateur ranks, from the Tweede Klasse in 1986/87 up to the Hoofdklasse A title in 2013/14 under Simon Ouaali, the season that took Sparta Nijkerk into the Derde Divisie. Twice since, the club has watched a season end without a finish: in 2019–20 and again in 2020–21, the league was cancelled with Sparta Nijkerk near the top of the table.

Cup football has given the club its two afternoons worth remembering. In 2010–11 they knocked Eredivisie side Excelsior out of the KNVB Cup, 2–1, before falling to Noordwijk in the next round; in 2023–24 they held Fortuna Sittard scoreless for 80 minutes before conceding the only goal of the tie. Retired professionals have found their way to Nijkerk rather than the other way round: Gino Coutinho, once a goalkeeper for PSV and Vitesse among others, played on here after his career wound down, and striker Thomas Buitink joined straight from Vitesse on his retirement in June 2026.

Orange shirts, black shorts, and a fixture that still matters more than any of that: the Veluwe derby against DVS'33 of nearby Ermelo, played out in front of a crowd that fills De Ebbenhorst the way no league match against a stranger ever quite does.