FC Dordrecht: Building a structure for heritage work

In our Erasmus+ project “Football Makes History: Schools and Football Club Museums Unlocking Local Heritage education”, we worked with football clubs, schools and heritage stakeholders. One of the missions aimed to find out how football clubs can be(come) educational spaces. In the last leg of our project, we invited new clubs to connect with our platform. We wanted to learn more about how they organise their heritage work, which values drive that work and where the possibilities are to develop this work further. The mode was to collaborate with these clubs on one of their ongoing activities, share the insights from our project, and listen and learn where needs and opportunities for further collaboration lie. One of the clubs with which we connected Football Makes History is FC Dordrecht.

In this article, Tijs Hardam reflects on his mission to strengthen the heritage work at his favourite club. In the spring of 2025, he was both a trainee from the Applied History MA programme of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, placed with Football Makes History at the Reinwardt Academy Research Group on Cultural Heritage.

Welcome to Dordrecht

While big clubs such as Feyenoord, PSV and Ajax may boast histories and trophy rooms – engaging thousands of people annually with their heritage work – there are 31 other professional football clubs in The Netherlands who have contributed their fair share to football heritage. 

Among these is FC Dordrecht. Located in Dordrecht, a city in South Holland, the club traces its (official) origins back to 1972 with the establishment of FC Dordrecht as its own professional club. Earlier origins, to be found in the Dordrechtsche Football Club (DFC), go back even to the year 1883. Despite having spent some seasons in the Dutch top flight (most recently in 2015) the club is one of the smallest in Dutch professional football. The old stadium, commonly known as The Krommedijk, only houses 4.100 fans. 

From an authentic football culture to a structure for heritage

What the club lacks in terms of trophies and attendance it surely makes up for with its club culture. The stadium of the FC can be said to be old and worn down, but it also provides a more ‘authentic’ football experience. Fans sit close to the pitch and The Krommedijk provides a very accessible way to watch football. Besides this, the fan culture has been strengthened over the years, with growing attendance rates and a strong, independent supporters club with its own building. 

As a supporter, I have to admit that my expectations for helping the club develop some work on their heritage were low. The club had limited resources, and I didn’t have a large network in the fanbase. Despite this, the results have been very positive! The club is on its way to give their history the place in their organisation which it deserves, with the establishment of an official heritage foundation soon. 

Steps into a new space: finding the key person.

How does one go about establishing such a form of heritage work in a football club? What challenges arise when you try to apply your heritage theories to the practice of a living football club? This journey starts with a meeting with the club archivist. 

All football clubs have their own internal mechanisms. Any new initiative requires the backing of some groups or individuals with different roles in and around the club. Whether you are trying to get a club to cooperate more with existing cultural institutions or to establish some heritage activity, both paths need proper engagement.

An important place to start is to find and connect with that one influential person in the supporters association who has shown an interest in heritage work; or maybe it is the community outreach department. Of importance is that you find a way ‘inside’ the club to ensure that some group or trusted club individual is willing to explore heritage cooperation. Face-to-face contact and a familiarity with the club culture are crucial to make sure your efforts are successful in establishing a connection. 

When a club does not have an established ‘official’ heritage branch that could be contacted (like a museum, a heritage foundation etc.), finding another way inside the club is crucial. Often, ‘regular’ club directors are primarily concerned with the commercial and sporting success of the club. History and heritage work is seen as a hobby at best and a distraction from the real football business at its worst. 

Although there are exceptions to this rule, the recommendation would be to find someone from the club who is actively connected to the fan base and culture. In my case, with FC Dordrecht, this turned out to be the club archivist. Someone who had been developing both the physical and digital archive of the club for years, arguably, without enough official recognition from FC Dordrecht itself. After getting in contact with him, the ball started rolling and the first steps were made in further developing the heritage work at the club. 

Set the stage: meet up!

There were already some developments at FC Dordrecht in relation to heritage work. I learned more about this in a physical meeting with the club archivist. Although our first meetup took place at the official club offices a lot of comfort was not to be expected. The heating, coffee machine and projector were broken, as is typical for a cult football club like FC Dordrecht, which got used to working with the most minimal of means. Heritage professionals who are used to formal meeting rooms and official lunches, have to know that dealing with football clubs requires adapting to a more informal organisation. I do not mean this in a negative sense; my argument would even be that it makes for a more challenging experience. 

Make sense of what has been gathered

What the club lacked in material wealth was readily compensated for in terms of heritage wealth. The club archivist introduced me to a large digital archive which, among other things, included statistics about every game played until the 1970’s. This wealth of knowledge was kept on a personal USB stick, with a copy being placed at the main club office. In total numbering some 70 GB’s, the amount of detail and heritage craftsmanship was quite impressive. Not only were old players listed extensively, but also their family connections were documented. 

As for the physical club archive, made of old yearbooks and other football memorabilia, this was taken into the personal home of the club archivist after flooding under the eastern stand had destroyed some of the material. This ad hoc solution, bringing the entire physical archive into the personal ownership of the archivist, is typical of the way FC Dordrecht had dealt with its heritage over the years. 

While of course, sometimes the club leadership would show some interest in the physical or digital archive (for example, when old match statistics were needed for social media), there was no ‘official’ heritage work being supported by the club. Writer Elise Kusters of the ‘Krommedijk Kronieken’, an important book on the history of the club, noted that the financing of the book had to come entirely from fans and friends. 

Enter planning mode!

Having met the key people and having discussed the background and needs, several actionable ideas came to us. We needed to convince the club leadership of the value of heritage work and also make sure other fans could participate in maintaining and using the history of the club. Several ideas were shared until we ended up deciding on a central one; the establishment of a heritage foundation. 

A problem that we identified in the existing heritage work of the club was that it did not guarantee any continuity in terms of the collection. If something were to happen to the club archivist, most of the archives would be lost or difficult to transfer to another person. This meant that the biggest step in terms of heritage work that could be made was ensuring that the club and its fans would take formal ownership over the history of the club. 

The pressure cooking

Within a few hours, a proposal was fleshed out, giving different arguments as to why the club would benefit from such a foundation. With a foundation, the club would be able to more easily attract subsidies for heritage work, while also allowing fans the opportunity to participate in using the archives. Several other benefits were written down on paper and, quite spontaneously, presented to the club manager who was present at the offices. 

From the start, it was made clear that we needed to really pitch our case. The club leadership of a football club is, understandably, mostly focused on commercial and sporting success. This means that any proposal which demands time and energy requires a clear case for the leadership to invest effort into it. While to heritage professionals the importance of engaging with a club’s history is obvious, this needs to be proved concretely in practice, with arguments that also speak to a non-academic audience. 

The foot in the door

Although we had not gotten the green light yet, a first contact had been made. The club manager turned out to be enthusiastic and invited us to participate in the upcoming ‘Legends’ meeting. This meeting was a celebration of old Dordrecht players, including the presentation of old football t-shirts, at the business home of the club. A chance not only to see what the club was already doing in terms of heritage work but also to meet other people from the club leadership. 

The Legends evening turned out to be a pretty successful heritage night, both in terms of familiarising a broader club audience with the importance of history, while also allowing us an opportunity to share the heritage foundation pitch with more club members. Older players were honoured with several gifts and put in the spotlight. A talk was given by the club archivist on the heritage work at the club, also naming Football Makes History as a project which could help this work forward. Besides this, a collection of older FC Dordrecht t-shirts was presented to become a permanent feature of the business home. 

Joining this ‘Legends’ meeting was a good opportunity to pitch our heritage case. We were introduced to several new board members who turned out to be very enthusiastic about our heritage foundation proposal. 

Gametime: Establishing a Foundation

On the recommendation of one of the board members, we made sure to include the fan club in further implementation of the Heritage Foundation. Since a lot of memories, items and commitment to the club are enshrined in the fan club, it is only normal that they should be included in the project. After discussions with the fan club board, who were very enthusiastic and willing to potentially give some financial support, a final meeting with the club board was set. 

Due to the preparations for promotion playoffs at the end of the 24/25 season, it was tricky to get space in the calendars. Despite this obstacle, a moment was found where the club archivist, a representative from the fan club and two representatives from the club board were brought together to reach a conclusion. The inclusion of the fan club in the process significantly helped with providing a more stable basis for the proposal, primarily in terms of the support from the broader community around FC Dordrecht. 

Several options were on offer in terms of structuring the heritage foundation. One option was an independent heritage foundation which would take ownership over the archives while not being an ‘official’ part of the club. This is for instance the model of the foundation of football club Go Ahead Eagles (Stichting Niet Te Kraken), which operates completely independently from the professional leadership of the club. 

Our idea, also inspired by the lessons of the Football Makes History project, was that this was not a good option for FC Dordrecht. Instead of leaving heritage work to external actors, we felt it was of prime importance to make sure the club itself recognises the importance of heritage work and takes control over this aspect that is of importance for any football organisation. 

Sharing responsibilities

With the independent option being off the table, we decided on a hybrid structure. Both the fan club (which has its own legal entity) and the club leadership would together appoint a foundation board, sharing ownership over the heritage foundation. The inclusion of the fan club in the ownership was argued to be of importance because it provided a sense of continuity. A professional club leadership could be captured by certain financial interests or investors who would divert the heritage foundation from its original goals. By giving the fan club an equal say in the organisation of the foundation, this problem would be solved for the long term. 

With the working title of ‘De Ouwe Schapekop’ (which roughly translates to the old sheepshead, a reference to the way FC Dordrecht fans are called) it was decided to start with the establishment of the foundation in the new season. In this way, over the course of just 2 months, the efforts of the club archivist and my internship had resulted in a concrete result; the establishment of an official heritage foundation which sought to preserve both the physical and digital archive while also further developing the available heritage. A model which, with the right guidance and further practical steps, can be of inspiration to other clubs and heritage professionals. 

Thinking points

Football club heritage enthusiasts, fans and other involved people, could reflect on my experience with FC Dordrecht. What lessons can this example provide for other heritage professionals? 

What is the role of an ‘academic outsider’?

First of all, football heritage is a product of mass culture instead of just a cultural niche. Any project that you want to undertake with (fan) clubs should take into account that you are not trying to engage a typical museum or heritage audience. Many fans have their own sense of history, which can not easily be systematised in regular heritage procedures or presentations. An academic outsider should be humble and seek to place the club and its fans front and centre, instead of their own academic projections or theories. Getting to know ‘their’ world is important.  

What is (actually) in it for the club?

This is also a world where football clubs have to survive an environment of ruthless commercial competition. In that situation, heritage work is often not a priority. The leadership of football clubs is often not a long-term appointment and has to balance different interests. Such a context creates challenges for academic professionals as you need to provide concrete arguments as to why a club leadership should spend time, money and effort on heritage work. As one of the FC Dordrecht managers told us when we pitched him the heritage foundation idea: ‘What’s in it for us?’. 

What is the right speed?

Following up on this point, patience is important when setting up a heritage project. Getting to know the right people, making the right connections and fleshing out your proposal takes time. Since you want the club fans or leadership to see the value of heritage work themselves, they should be in the driving seat. Doing the tasks for them just to speed things up or trying to rush heritage processes is of no use to the end goal of sustainable heritage development. 

With special thanks to: Gerard van den Houten (club archivist), Egide van der Heide (SV FC Dordrecht), Frank Berkhout (SV FC Dordrecht), Jonathan Even Zohar (Reinwardt Academie), Menno Welling (Reinwardt Academie) 

Find out more

This work relates strongly to one of the eight key practices identified in the Football Makes History Gameplan – a toolkit for football clubs to strengthen their heritage work, namely Strategic Partnerships.

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