Ninety years of badminton in the Netherlands

On the weekend of 21 and 22 March 1931, the first badminton tournament in the Netherlands was held in Noordwijk. In the same year, the National Federation was also created.

Badminton was popular in the Netherlands through tennis players, who used the sport as a fun alternative in the colder months. This video was shot for these people in 1932.

So the tennis employee was in Allmin Handelsblad, Which was one of the first articles written on the latter sport in the fall of 1930. “Badminton has been played in our country for several years now,” it was also discovered that a few years ago it was first practiced in Amsterdam on a badminton court “in a large building of RAI”. Soon badminton was practiced in Amsterdam, at the AMVJ Building in Leidseplein.

Elsewhere in the country there was also theater. “If we’re not mistaken, it has already been practiced in Brabant before, but in Leiden, some well-known players from the world of tennis have regularly played the game once a week.” In addition, fans appeared in Schiedam, who played matches against a club from Rotterdam, “consisting mostly of English merchants”.

Although there was never any contact with each other, the sport had grown everywhere. Badminton, for example, quickly became popular in the Netherlands in the 1930s. “Once you get down, you don’t play anything else in the winter months. Badminton is magic, like golf, but it’s much cheaper, and it opens up the skin pores a bit more!”

A harbinger of a far cry from the Rijksmuseum collection

The first tournaments

In March 1931, there was no national federation yet, but exactly ninety years ago the first national championships were held in Noordwijk anyway. Motherland: “There was a good mood among the players and a lot came to look at this game, which has achieved such a height in England, America and Canada in a few years.”

In the interval between matches, several players and club representatives have also made plans to create the National Badminton Association, “which will then work mainly to strengthen the organization of winter league matches, as well as to organize some open tournaments.” And yes, on November 15, 1931, this federation was established.

A year later, for example, was the first true national championship, with Dirk Stecker being the attacking winner in the men’s doubles – along with J. Woltman. Sticker would later become famous as Director of Heineken, Chairman of the VVD, Secretary of State and Secretary General of NATO.