A farewell party for a sports hall? Yes, why not after 55 years of loyal service? The wrecking ball awaits in front of the De Koel sports hall in Borger, but not after an exuberant farewell has been said.
Mixed feelings in Borger, at least among the people who can and were regularly found in the De Koel sports hall. And it’s not just about athletes. The Sinterklaas festival was also always held there, just to name a few.
“There are many memories and emotions in this sports hall,” says Bé Kuipers (58). He was just a toddler when the hall was built in 1968. He came there for school gymnastics, indoor football and volleyball, of which he was chairman for eight years.
Kuipers is a member of the tender committee and was in the sounding board group for the new sports hall. Once it was established that the municipality of Borger-Odoorn thought that De Koel had had his day, he decided to at least cooperate in the follow-up. What kind of sports hall should come back? What was needed?
Farewell party
And he thought that a farewell party was appropriate on old Koel’s very last evening. He initially wanted to link this to the 25th anniversary of the volleyball club. Until the municipality announced that it would be a better idea if all of Borger could say goodbye. “So it will now be a party for everyone. The only link with the volleyball club is that the profits go there.”
The time has come on January 6. Party band De Moeflons will then perform in the sports hall, where drinks will also be served for this occasion. If the floor is smeared with beer, it will not be a disaster, assured contractor Dijkstra Draisma. The wooden floor is still being processed and then given a new life as the back wall of the canteen. Circular construction is the credo, whereby parts are reused whenever possible.
‘This doesn’t leave you cold’
The five hundred tickets costing 12.50 euros have now been sold. What kind of celebration awaits buyers? In the permit application, Kuipers describes it as an ’emotional and musical farewell party’.
“I don’t think there are literally tears being shed, but the disappearance of this hall is certainly accompanied by emotions. All those matches that were played here and the big parties that were held here. The indoor football players from Borger have played in the premier league here, the judo holds a super-sized competition here every year, the gymnastics association is always here and as for me: my mother played handball here at the highest level. You don’t care about those kinds of things.”
Would he not have preferred that the old Koel, after a renovation, would remain standing?
“I find that a difficult question. It is a very nice sports hall: cozy, with a perfect floor and a grandstand with a good view. People love tradition and believe that De Koel belongs to Borger as it is. Take the canteen: it doesn’t look like much and yet it is your canteen. Because you’ve been coming there for so many years. It’s just fun. Anyway, we also see that De Koel is aging. At some point there are so many things that need to be addressed that it is better to put in a new one.”
Protos Weering and Christmas Volleyball
The last week of December, De Koel is the setting for one of the largest events that are held here annually: the Christmas Volleyball Tournament. The month of December, which also includes the Protos Weering tournament, is the largest source of income for manager Klaas Willem Smeenge (47). The planning of the construction job has even been adjusted accordingly. The demolition will start immediately after the farewell party, on Monday January 8, with the aim being to have the new hall ready in December 2024.
Smeenge sincerely hopes that this will work. He took over the catering industry five years ago from the Nijland family, who ran it for almost 25 years. First the husbands Anne and Pia, both now deceased, and later their son Dennis. At that time there was a separate manager.
Smeenge: “I can combine management and catering because nowadays there is much less involved in management. Reservations now go through the municipality. In any case, that task is less involved than before. Everything goes digital.”
Air cushion and ski rental
How different it used to be. Former manager Steven Paas (77) remembers it well. Associations that wanted to play sports in the hall had to request this with notes. Paas wrote everything down in booklets, which recently reappeared when the house was cleared out.
At that time, private individuals could also rent an air cushion and other sports equipment. Paas delivered it and picked it up again.
“It was quite a job to get such an air cushion clean and dry again. We usually did that on Mondays, when we also gave the changing rooms a thorough overhaul. Then the high-pressure washer was added.”
Paas lives directly opposite the sports hall. That was useful when he was an administrator, but: “Everyone knew I lived there. When I was free, they suddenly showed up at my house: “Can I have ten skis?” That was sometimes annoying.”
Price tag: 9 million euros
In the near future, Paas will have a full view of the demolition and new construction, which will cost a total of 9 million euros. The hall will continue to be called De Koel, which was the winning name in a competition at the time. De Koel is literally in a hole.
The athletes must seek refuge elsewhere for the time being, in other villages. What they get in return is a sports hall – which can be divided into three parts – with a larger, event-proof floor, a canteen that overlooks the hall and a multifunctional room for sports and meetings, among other things.
The manager, who will work as a facilities employee for the municipality during construction, is happy with it. He will soon have a kitchen behind his bar where he can prepare the bitterballen, to name a few. Now he has to go through the entire canteen to a kitchen somewhere else in the building.
‘I think in the end everyone is happy with it’
“The layout will soon be much more logical for everyone. I don’t really suffer from melancholy myself. Of course, I knew this would happen for a long time. Of course there are nostalgic feelings involved when something is demolished. I used to play handball myself and grew up with De Koel. In that respect, I think it’s a shame that it’s disappearing. The new canteen will be sterile for the first time. So new and light, even though there is nothing hanging on the wall yet. But I think in the end everyone is happy with it.”