• EFC PW

    Enschedese Football Club Prinses Wilhelmina (PW) is an amateur football club located in Enschede, in the East of the Netherlands. The club was founded in 1885 and can lay a strong claim to be the first Dutch football club. Today, PW has more than 200 members playing in seven teams catering for all levels from competitive to seven-a-side veterans.PW’s first team plays in the Saturday competition of the fourth division of the East district within the Dutch football association competition (KVNB) and is part of a league involving teams from Twente and the Achterhoek. (4e klasse D).In recent years, the first team were pushing for promotion to the 3rd division; relegation swiftly followed promotion but we are currently holding our own in a tough competition. The first team coach is Jos van Gulijk who has been manager of PW for a decade now, and is the longest-serving manager of a football club in the Twente region.PW caters for players active at every level of football, with teams in a number of other leagues, including two seven-a-side leagues, and teams on Saturday and Sunday leagues. The club has a strong veterans’ section, with teams in a Sunday competition and also in seven-a-side field league.PW falls under the jurisdiction of KNVB: all players are required to have an exclusive registration with the KNVB through PW: this is necessary to guarantee the safety of all participants. The club holds training evenings at a range of levels throughout the week, and potential players are welcome to attend training sessions to see if PW fits their own ambitions, and if appropriate to arrange KNVB registration.The club’s origins lie in the textiles industry for which the city of Enschede was once famous. One of the local factory owners sent his son to Burnley ?? then the heart of the global textile business ?? for a year to learn the finer points of the family trade. Bernard van Heek took the opportunity to join a local football club in Burnley, and seeing its positive recreational benefits, brought the sport back to the Netherlands.For more than a hundred years, the club was based at the Volkspark (the people’s park), a park created by the Van Heek family to endow the city with an open recreational facility. In 2003, PW moved to purpose-built accommodation in the south of the city and today is engaged in a comprehensive modernisation and refurbishment of the clubhouse and changing facilities.PW is located in a cluster of four football clubs (together with Sportclub Enschede, Zuid Eschmarke and the Tubanters) in the Diekman, the former location of Enschede’s only professional football club, FC Twente. PW has its own grass matchday pitch as well as a training pitch, and has a pitch-sharing agreement with the other local clubs as circumstances require.PW has from its foundation been an international club with links through the textiles industry to England and beyond. The club is always interested to make contact with fans or teams seeking to sample the historic experience of Dutch football, and to arrange incidental friendly matches. The club has a historical archive that can be made accessible for interested parties and has in recent years produced two (Dutch language) club histories.Non-Dutch residents of Enschede and the wider region are particularly welcome at the club to train and/or for a first team trial.For more information or inquiries, please contact the international section representative, Paul Benneworth (paul.benneworth@icloud.com).