PEC Zwolle Women

When Bo van Egmond left for a bigger stage in 2023, she took with her a Netherlands cap earned while at PEC Zwolle. That combination describes most of what PEC Zwolle Women have been since the section was set up on 10 March 2010 and entered the women's Eredivisie for the 2010–11 season.

The closest they came was 2019. Zwolle reached the final of the KNVB Beker Vrouwen and lost 1–2 to Ajax. That same campaign, 2018–19, brought a fourth-place league finish, the best in the club's history.

A season earlier, Babiche Roof had ended a barren spell of her own in emphatic fashion: 16 goals made her the leading scorer in the division in 2017–18. Roof's year is the one statistical peak the women's side owns outright, and it arrived from a squad that has always had to look further afield than most in the Eredivisie — Doreen Nabwire came from Kenya, Marlo Sweatman from Jamaica.

The team plays at the MAC³PARK stadion, the men's ground, which holds 14,000. For most of the season that is a great deal more seating than the fixture requires. It was not always so: the women began at Sportpark Ceintuurbaan, a 3,000-capacity venue, and the move upwards was a promotion in address rather than in results.

The blue-and-white stripes and the Bluefingers nickname belong to the whole of PEC Zwolle, men and women alike, as does the website — there is no separate address for the women's team, only a section on the club's main pages.

The fixture that matters most is the Overijssel derby against FC Twente Vrouwen, and it is a lopsided one: Twente have spent the past decade collecting the titles Zwolle have been chasing. Getting back to the top four remains the immediate marker.