SV Blauw Wit (Holland)

SV Blauw Wit is an amateur football club from the Dutch city of Nijmegen who were founded on the 14^th November 1914 by Mr J Melssen. The team had a strong religious background and were initially led by Father Welter, starting out life playing on land belonging to a farmer; Hent Albers.

Before long the team moved to a meadow in Rush to the south of the city. From there Blauw Wit were on the move once more, this time north to a ground at Dennenstraat. By 1927 the club known at the time as rksv Blauw Wit reached the highest class of Catholic football.

Following a merger of the football authorities following World War Two, the club were placed in the highest grade of Nijmegen football. Within a year they were promoted to the fourth tier of KNVB football. In 1954 Blauw Wit had to give up their ground to the housing association, moving to a pitch in De Goffert, where NEC Amateurs would later play.

The move didn’t work out too well as the team were relegated back to local football. To make the club more accessible to non Catholics rksv was replaced by SV; Sportvereniging Blauw Wit, to give them their full title. Another move followed for the 1963-64 campaign as the club moved to Sportpark De Schoonhorst, where the members built the first clubhouse to cater for the several pitches on site.

Membership grew in the club leading a larger clubhouse being built in 1974, with the team winning promotion to the third Derde Klasse. Two years later the team were promoted once again, but their spell only lasted two seasons. Consecutive relegations took the club back down to the Vierde Klasse.

Apart from the a spell in the late 80’s Blauw Wit remained in the fourth Vierde Klasse before winning promotion, while serving the communities of local neighbourhoods of Voorhees and Neerbosch through over forty teams playing out of the club.

SV Blauw Wit will play in the Derde Klasse Zontag Oost (Third Class Sunday – East) in the 2013-14 season.

My visit

Sunday 19^th January 2014

My visit to The Netherlands was going well, and I’d got ahead of my schedule in Nijmegen. I’d even found SCH, a club I hadn’t even heard of before the bus past when seeking out Blauw Wit.

From SCH I took a twenty minute walk finding myself on Energieweg, a little behind schedule as I was heading to the 12.30 kick off at De Goffert between NEC and ADO Den Haag. The sun was shining brightly as I arrived, which didn’t really help my photography.

De Schoonhorst had four pitches with main one having an artificial pitch, with a match going on. Two sides of it had hedges as fences. The pitch had hard standing all the way around, without any cover or stands. The near side was by the expansive car park and clubhouse and was protected by high fencing.

Having taken my photos I headed off down Dennenstraat, past where Blauw Wit once played to my next location, Quick 1888.