When we talk about the history of a football club, we usually measure it in decades. But sometimes, the sponsors featured in the matchday programme operate on an entirely different timeline. Page 44 of the September 2013 FC Groningen booklet features a sponsor profile for Van der Flier bv, an earthmoving and excavation company. The most striking detail on the page is their anniversary logo: 1763-2013.

This local business was celebrating its 250th anniversary. Founded before the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands even existed, and more than a century before the rules of association football were codified, Van der Flier represents the absolute bedrock of the northern economy. The text, penned by directors Mark and Kor, oozes pragmatic northern defiance: “Crisis of geen crisis! Hoe? Eenheidsworst lusten we niet” (Crisis or no crisis! How? We don’t like cookie-cutter solutions). They proudly detail their specialized, heavy-duty work: mowing on water, utilizing massive soil-suction trucks, and operating excavators equipped with giant saws.

For a club that identifies so strongly with the working class and the agricultural roots of its hinterland, having a 250-year-old earthmoving company as a sponsor is a perfect cultural fit. The fans in the Euroborg understand this language of heavy machinery, mud, and hard labor.

A Look into the Future

The focus on “grondverzet” (earthmoving) in this 2013 advertisement carries a heavy, unintended historical irony. At the exact moment this programme was printed, the literal soil of the Groningen province was becoming the center of a national crisis. The escalating earthquakes caused by natural gas extraction would soon require the most massive structural reinforcement and earth-moving operation in modern Dutch history. Companies like Van der Flier bv, with their centuries of expertise in the local dirt, would find themselves on the frontlines of physically saving and rebuilding the region’s infrastructure throughout the 2020s. Their “crisis or no crisis” mentality was about to be tested like never before.