Sports

Many Dutch people are members of sports clubs in their free time, and they are a great way to get to know the locals.

In order to participate in any organized sport in the Netherlands, you must belong to a relevant sport club. About a quarter of the people living here are registered to one of the 35,000 sports clubs. About two thirds of the population who are older than 15 years participate in sports weekly.

The most popular sport in the Netherlands is football (soccer), with field hockey and volleyball as the second and third most popular team sports. Tennis, gymnastics, and golf are the three most widely played individual sports.

The Noord-Nederlandse Golf & Country Club offers courses in English, and new members are welcome.

For an overview of all the fitness and health clubs in the Netherlands, we suggest you take a look at newgym: you can pick your location, specify your preferences and check out photos and reviews of current gym members.

For spectator sporting events, it is best to search online for the sport for the particular city.

The city of Groningen has a searchable web site – Sport050 – with links to all the sport clubs and organizations in Groningen. For the province of Drenthe, you can check out Sport in Drenthe. In Friesland, you can visit Fryslân in Beweging.