KRAS Volendam II

Debbie Bont came back to Volendam as a World Champion. She had played for the club before moving into the sport's top level with the Dutch national side, and when she returned to the touchline at Sporthal Opperdam she took Dames 1 to the Eredivisie crown in the 2020-21 season.

HV KRAS/Volendam's men have carried Dutch handball's honours list for much of the past twenty years: six Eredivisie championships between 2005 and 2013, five domestic cups and three BeNeLux League titles won in three straight seasons either side of 2010. Patrick Kersten belongs to that period twice over, first as a player and then in the dugout between 2000 and 2003, before the run of titles took hold. The rivalry with Aalsmeer runs through most of those seasons too — matches between the two are still known simply as the North Holland derby, and little about the fixture has needed explaining to either set of supporters since.

Behind both first teams sits a club of around 460 members fielding some thirty sides, with a development pathway, NeXXtep, built to keep producing players for Dames 1 and Heren 1 rather than importing them. It is a scale of youth work that a hall holding 1,200 people would not suggest from the outside.

None of it moves far from where it started. The club began as a Roman Catholic parish side in Volendam, registered on 12 January 1963 as RKHV Volendam, and the initials still open its official name even now the shirts carry a sponsor's.