The example she herself never had

Utrecht has played an important role in the development of Dutch women's football for seventy years. A key player like Shanice van de Sanden thus fulfils more exemplary roles at once.

Herbido

It started in Utrecht with an advertisement in January 1955 in the local newspaper. Wil van Bruggen called on women to set up their own football club. This happened on 12 January 1955, exactly at 8:44 PM, when about sixty women started Herbido. This name was a combination of the three Utrecht football clubs Hercules, Bilthoven and DOS.

Goalkeeper Gien van Maanen, who came from handball, became one of the best-known footballers of her generation. In the 1950s and 1960s, she kept a scrapbook of her sporting achievements, she revealed in 2023 after her death. On the first page were pictures of footballers, but all without heads. She had replaced these with women's heads, allowing Van Maanen to fantasise that these were famous footballers of the past. This is how she made her own examples, at a time when women's football was not 'officially' allowed.

On 30 April 1955 Van Maanen and her team played the first women’s football match in Utrecht against EHDVVV from The Hague. Some 4000 spectators saw Herbido win 4-0. At Herbido’s request, the Dutch Women’s Football Association was founded that same month, to which thirteen women’s clubs joined. The national football federation (KNVB) wanted no part in this, but an agreement was made with West Germany to play the first international match on 23 September 1956 – unofficially of course. Herbido was represented by no fewer than four players. The Netherlands lost this historic match 2-1.

The enthusiasm soon came to an end due to structural opposition from the national football federation to the development of women’s football. Van Maanen was also forced to stop playing football and return to handball. She would never fulfil her dream of becoming an example for girls.

It was not until 1972 that the national football federation recognized women’s competitions for the first time. The real breakthrough of this sport came in 2017 when the Dutch women’s team unexpectedly won the European Championship, in their own country!

IJsselstein

Shanice van de Sanden was one of the leading players in this team. Just before the start of this tournament, she made history as the first female footballer ever to appear on the front page of the most important Dutch football magazine (Voetbal International), together with Jill Roord, Jackie Groenen and Vivianne Miedema. The magazine had existed for more than fifty years at the time…

Van de Sanden was born in Utrecht on 2 October 1992. She started playing football at the age of twelve at VVIJ in the village of IJsselstein near Utrecht. She told the national youth news broadcast (Jeugdjournaal) in 2018:

I had a really nice team, and I liked the training. I stuck with that club.

She had to overcome the resistance right away, because her brothers did not fully agree with their sister being on the football field.

In 2008, she ended up at the professional local football club (FC Utrecht). That was the start of a long and international career in the Netherlands (after FC Utrecht, SC Heerenveen from 2010-11 and FC Twente from 2011-16 followed), England (Liverpool 2016-17 and 2022-24), France (Olympique Lyonnais 2017-20), Germany (Vfl Wolfsburg 2020-22) and Mexico (Pachuca Feminil from 2024 onwards). With Olympique Lyonnais, Van de Sanden won the UEFA Women’s Champions League, the most important club prize in Europe, three times in a row. She had also learned about herself, she said in an interview with de Volkskrant:

You play football to play football, but you have to know your role in the team interest, find your peace and focus on yourself in training sessions.

She experienced her sporting highlight with the Dutch team in her home town, where the 2017 European Football Championship started with a match against Norway. Van de Sanden scored the only goal there, getting the tournament off to a thunderous start. Just under a month later, it ended successfully in Enschede, where the final against Denmark was won 4-2.

In the weeks that followed, Van de Sanden was honoured twice in her own region. In Utrecht itself, 22,000 supporters celebrated the European title, after which Van de Sanden was also festively received in IJsselstein. 

Example

Whereas women's football faced enormous social resistance in the 1950s, that had completely changed over 60 years later. Thanks in part to Van de Sanden, that opposition had been overcome by 2017, even if all the prejudices and disadvantages are far from gone.

In an interview with Helden Magazine in 2022, she said that she had also encountered considerable resistance in her own environment because of her personal choices:

Now that I have a steady girlfriend, there is jealousy. I just did not know what to do anymore and chose for myself. Even my brother – with whom I used to share everything – I don’t see at the moment. He has a bad image of my girlfriend, but he also hasn’t made any effort to get to know her.

That her openness is important to the queer community became apparent, for example, during the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo. The editor of LGBTQIA+-magazine Winq noted:

Of the 16 Dutch Olympians who are open about their sexual orientation, no fewer than eight play in women’s football. The ladies Sherida Spitse, Sisca Folkertsma, Vivianne Miedema, Daniëlle van de Donk, Shanice van de Sanden, Anouk Dekker, Stefanie van der Gragt and Merel van Dongen shine on and off the field! They are openly lesbian, and proud of it.

Thus, the IJsselstein football star is an example in two ways: for girls who want to play football and for the queer community. She herself said:

I never really had an example myself. That makes it all the more wonderful to be there for the children of today.

Whereas Van Maanen was still forced to stick women's heads on male footballers as her dream example, that is no longer necessary. And we owe that in part to her city colleague Shanice van de Sanden.

Jurryt van de Vooren