Sparta Stadium Het Kasteel

The nickname came first. The official name caught up with the crowd only after a long detour through commerce: from 1999 to 2004 the ground carried the name of an energy company, until the businessman Hans van Heelsbergen bought it and the sponsor's name came off.

What the crowd sees now is not quite what J.H. de Roos and W.F. Overeynder drew. Zwarts & Jansma rebuilt the ground across 1998 and 1999 and turned the pitch through ninety degrees, so the axis of play today sits at right angles to the one the founders laid out.

The surface has been less settled. Sparta laid artificial turf in 2014 on grounds of cost, then took it up again in June 2022; the club began the 2022/23 season back on grass.

During the 1928 Summer Olympics the Netherlands beat Belgium 3–1 here on 5 June, then drew 2–2 with Chile three days later. Rather more recently the pitch has taken the weight of a stage: the rap group Broederliefde played the ground on 29 April 2017.