March 27, 1937: Stadion Feijenoord opens in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The name is a bit confusing: It was named after the soccer team that plays there, Sport Club Feijenoord, which was named after its neighborhood. However, the stadium is in a different neighborhood of Rotterdam, IJsselmonde. (That's not a typographical error: The 1st 2 letters are capitalized.) And in 1973, the name of the team was slightly changed to "Feyenoord."
And, of course, no one calls the stadium "Stadion Feijenoord." It is known by its nickname, "De Kuip," meaning "The Tub," for its shape.
AFC Ajax, their Amsterdam-based arch-rivals, built what is now named the Johan Cruijff Arena in 1996. Before that, they split their games between their neighborhood ground, De Meer, and the larger Olympic Stadium. For that reason, De Kuip is regarded as the greatest football stadium in the Netherlands.
(And to clear something else up: The names "Holland" and "the Netherlands" are not interchangeable. While Holland includes the country's 3 largest and most important cities -- Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague -- it has about 1/3rd of the country's population, and about 1/6th of its area. Telling someone from Eindhoven, in North Brabant, that he lives in "Holland" is less dangerous than telling someone from Glasgow that he lives in "England," but it's still an insult.)
The stadium's original capacity was 64,000. The Nazis planned to tear it down, for scrap for their war effort, but didn't get around to it. In 1949, capacity was expanded to 69,000, and in 1994 it was converted to a 51,117-seat all-seater. In 1999, a significant amount of restoration and interior work took place at the stadium prior to its use as a venue in the UEFA Euro 2000 tournament, although capacity was largely unaffected.
Feyenoord have won the Dutch national league, the Eredivisie, 15 times, 12 since moving into De Kuip. They've won the Dutch version of the FA Cup, the KNVB Beker, 13 times, 11 since moving in. They've won both, "The Double," 3 times: 1965, 1969 and 1984. In 1970, a year after Ajax lost the Final, Feyenoord became the 1st Dutch team to win the European Cup, the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League. (UPDATE: They won a 16th Eredivisie in 2023, and a 14th, KNVB Cup in 2024.)
De Kuip hosted the European Cup Final in 1972 (Ajax, to the locals' dismay, defeated Inter Milan) and 1982 (Aston Villa beat Bayern Munich), 6 European Cup Winners' Cup Finals, and the Final of Euro 2000 (France beat Italy on a golden goal by David Trezeguet).
De Kuip has hosted 2 Finals of the UEFA Europa League, both under the tournament's former name, the UEFA Cup. In 1974, Feyenoord beat Tottenham Hotspur, and the "Spurs" fans rioted, both inside the stadium and throughout the city, making themselves the 1st English team suspended from European play (first indefinitely, then the ban was lifted after 2 years), and embarrassing their manager, Bill Nicholson, into resigning. The 2002 Final was free of controversy and crowd trouble, and Feyenoord beat Borussia Dortmund.
Since 2006, Feyenoord have gone back and forth with plans for an expansion of De Kuip to 70,000 seats and plans for a new stadium of that size. They can't seem to agree on which would be better. And so, they continue to play at this legendary venue.
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March 27, 1937 was a Saturday. Elsewhere in soccer, North London team Arsenal went to Yorkshire, and played Middlesbrough to a draw, 1-1 at Ayresome Park in Middlesbrough.
In America, baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. One game was played in the Stanley Cup Playoffs: The Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum. The Wings went on to win the series, and the Cup, anyway.
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