SC HeerenveenSC Heerenveen's most celebrated moment in Dutch football folklore came decades before the club ever reached the Eredivisie regularly. Led by Abe Lenstra, one of the greatest Dutch forwards of the twentieth century, Heerenveen fell 5-1 behind to Ajax in a match remembered as one of the most astonishing comebacks in the country's football history, only to fight back and win 6-5. Lenstra, who spent nearly two decades at the club before a brief professional spell elsewhere, remains so closely associated with Heerenveen that the club's stadium has carried his name since 1994.
Founded on 20 July 1920 as Athleta, and renamed v.v. Heerenveen in 1922, the club spent most of its early decades outside the Dutch top flight, with its main period of prominence coming immediately after the Second World War, when Lenstra helped Heerenveen win six consecutive northern regional championships. A more lasting return to prominence began in 1993, when Heerenveen re-established itself in the Eredivisie under coach Foppe de Haan and chairman Riemer van der Velde, a partnership that turned the small Frisian club into a surprisingly consistent top-flight presence, including a runners-up finish in 1999-2000 that brought a rare appearance in the UEFA Champions League group stage.
Rather than competing for trophies through spending power, Heerenveen built a reputation for developing and selling strikers who went on to become stars elsewhere, among them Ruud van Nistelrooy, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Afonso Alves, income that helped the club remain one of the more financially stable in Dutch football. The club's own first major trophy came only in 2009, when Heerenveen beat FC Twente on penalties to win the KNVB Cup under coach Trond Sollied.
Playing in shirts patterned after the Frisian flag, with its distinctive water-lily leaves, and preceded before every home match by the Frisian anthem, Heerenveen has kept its regional identity at the centre of the club even as it has competed nationally. Nicknamed De Superfriezen, the team continues to represent Friesland at the Abe Lenstra Stadion, more than three decades after re-establishing itself among the Netherlands' regular top-flight clubs.