Sportcomplex 1574

The main hall at Sportcomplex 1574 has blue and yellow seats that look almost painted on. ZZ Leiden brought the colours from the old Vijf Meihal and moved them into the new building.

A green banner marks the entrance, but the club crest is not there. A large sign sits high on the gable wall, and two silver ventilation ducts run along the roofline. The courtyard outside is paved with grey bricks, and there is a long row of bicycles parked against a metal fence. A man in a red jacket walks past with a child, and a few people gather near the metal barriers by the main gate.

Inside the court, the floor is blue with a white line down the centre. Players in blue and yellow vertical stripes stand in a line, clapping. They camped in the final third during the warm-up before the crowd roared them on for the opening tip-off. The seating rises in a single tier, and the advertising boards above the seats show names like Janssen and Target. A flag hangs in the corner, yellow and blue, but the pattern is not clear enough to name the country.

The arena sits at the edge of a wider complex, and the only way into the door is through a glass entrance framed in green. A sign above the door reads "Welkom bij DVO/account+or," but the basketball club does not use that branding. The community hall in the next building is smaller, with about two hundred seats, and the main hall holds two thousand four hundred and thirty-five spectators.

The number 1574 comes from the year the city was relieved after a long siege. The municipality kept that date when they built the new place, even though the club asked for more seats to meet the Basketball Champions League rules. The club had to play elsewhere for a season while the building went up.