FC Groningen operates in a unique demographic environment. Thanks to its massive university and higher education institutions, Groningen is statistically one of the “youngest” cities in the Netherlands. The advertising grid on page 7 of the May 2014 matchday programme taps directly into this youthful, academic energy with a prominent ad for Stenden Hogeschool.

Featuring a smiling young man, the advertisement asks a direct question: “Leerkracht worden?” (Want to become a teacher?). It promotes the Pabo Groningen (the pedagogical academy for primary education) with the clever, football-adjacent slogan: “Met Stenden Pabo Groningen scoor je altijd!” (With Stenden Pabo Groningen, you always score!).

Placing a recruitment ad for primary school teachers in a football stadium booklet is a brilliant piece of targeted marketing. The terraces of the Euroborg are filled with thousands of young adults, students, and recent high school graduates figuring out their career paths. By advertising here, Stenden recognized that the football club is the largest weekly gathering of youth in the entire northern region.

A Look into the Future

The recruitment of teachers advertised in this 2014 programme became a matter of national urgency in the years that followed. By the 2020s, the Netherlands faced a severe, structural shortage of primary school teachers. Institutions like Stenden (which later merged to become NHL Stenden) became critical to the social infrastructure of the country. The young fans who might have seen this ad in the stadium and decided to enroll are now the educators shaping the minds of the next generation of FC Groningen supporters, proving that the influence of a matchday programme can extend far beyond the pitch and straight into the classroom.