Jong Sparta Rotterdam

Origins

On the Easter Sunday of 1 April 1888, eight students from Rotterdam founded a cricket club called Rotterdamsche Cricket & Football Club Sparta. It was established in the garden of the house of the first treasurer, Hartevelt Hoos Oostvestple, a building located on the 11 in Rotterdam. The club was founded by eight students between the ages of 13 and 16. Five of them were students of the then HBS at the Van Alkemadeplein, and the remaining three were students of the Gymnasium Erasmianum on the Coolvest, the name of the Coolsingel before it changed in 1888. All the founders came from wealthy families in Rotterdam, because at the time, it was only the high and middle classes who had the time and money to practice sports, such as cricket. All the founders, along with the other early members of Sparta, lived in the Stadsdriehoek, Cool, Rubroek or Crooswijk neighborhoods of Rotterdam, which had become a fast-growing port city of the Netherlands in the second half of the 19th century.

Sparta initially started as a cricket club, with the Dutch newspaper NRC of May 1888 already reporting a victory for Sparta over Achilles by 45 runs. However, when the boys were given a suitable ball, they also engaged in the sport of football, which had recently come over from the United Kingdom. The young Sparta members began playing this sport in the terrain that was located on the Noordereiland, west of the Burgmeester Hoffmanplein, and in July 1888, a football branch of the club was thus established. In the Netherlands, it was Sparta who introduced the goal with a crossbar and nets. Before them, only a rope was stretched between the posts.

First matches

The members of Sparta only played matches against each other in the first year. These matches were played in various compositions between the 35-hour lesson week and the subsequent 20-hour working week at the Delftse Poort, usually on the square in front of the church of the Grote or Sint-Laurenskerk.

In 1888 there was not yet an umbrella organization for football, so there were no organized competitions. Therefore, the clubs had to invite or challenge each other, which resulted in a lot of mutual challenges between the existing clubs. The first football challenge that Sparta received dates back to 28 December 1888, more than 38 weeks after the foundation date, but the game, scheduled for 30 December 1888, was not played due to the unplayability of the opponent's field. From April 1889, the training and matches began to take place on a site designated by the alderman to the west of De Heuvel in Rotterdam. In the same period, the club also got its first clubhouse on the Delfshavensedijk.

Federal football

In March 1890, Sparta joined the Dutch Football and Athletics Association (Nederlandse Atletiek en Voetbal Bond, NVAB), founded by Pim Mulier on 8 December 1889, the predecessor of today's KNVB, and they played their first real match later that year. In 1892 Sparta disbanded the cricket branch. On 18 December 1892, Sparta defeated the Amersfoortsche FC (AFC Quick 1890) with what still is a record result for a Dutch league match: 17–0. The right winger Freek Kampschreur scored 9 of the 17 goals and is still the shared record holder for the most goals in a single Dutch league match. The next home match against Go Ahead from Wageningen is an important one as both teams have a shot at winning the 2nd division championship, and thus it attracted 1500 spectators. Sparta lost 2–4, which still is their only loss in the 2nd division, but then won the away game (0–2) in February, thus finishing the season with the same amount of points, and since there were no tie-breakers at the time, both teams were promoted to the highest league of Dutch football on 23 April 1893.

Earlier that same year, on 18 March 1893, Sparta was the first Dutch club to play a match against a foreign opponent, Harwich & Parkeston F.C. of England, whose football was much more developed, and they showed their clear superiority with a resounding 8–0 victory. When another match against an English team, Felixstowe FC, was scheduled for 5 February 1894, the NVAB, in order to avert another humiliation to Sparta, forced them to field a team that included a few non-Spartan players, and the plan worked as the game ended in a 1–1 draw. On the following day, 6 February, Felixstowe FC played another match, this time against a Dutch squad with the best players of the Netherlands, which fielded only two players from Sparta, Weinthal and Freek Kampschreur. They did no better than the Sparta squad as they lost 0–1, but this game is now considered to be the first unofficial match of the Netherlands national team.

In August 1893, Sparta debuted a new field on the Binnenweg which had a real fence and some seats. The players could even dress up and wash in a nearby house, but because it was continuously flooded, Sparta received permission from the municipality to move to the Schuttersveld in Crooswijk. There, they remained undefeated from January 1894 until the end of the season as they finished in fourth. Sparta then founded the Rotterdam Football Association in 1894.

Innovations

Sparta introduced women's football in late 1896 by trying to organize a competition between a women's team from Sparta and the English Ladies Football Club from London. However, no permission for this match was given by the Dutch Football Association, which forbids it from happening.

Sparta also showed itself to be an innovator in other areas during this period. Over the years, Sparta introduced in the Netherlands, among other things: the header, a goal with a crossbar and nets, and brightly colored shirts. That red and white outfit was copied in 1899 during a visit by the Sparta board to Sunderland in England. Apart from being an innovator, Sparta was also known as a club that was sometimes difficult to deal with. For instance, in March 1897, Sparta temporarily withdrew from the Dutch league because of the alleged continuous dubious arbitration of Sparta matches, but especially due to turmoil at a match in Amsterdam against the apparently rather arrogant RAP, in which the referee did not act against the verbal abuse of the RAP players. Sparta's remaining two matches were awarded to their opponents (5–0) and the club was fined 10 Dutch coins, but despite this, it still finished fourth.