(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Sparks Haarlem to host European Cup Winners Cup-tournament
Nederlands
 HAARLEM (Neth.) -
Beginning coming Monday (August 19), the 32nd edition of the annual European Cup Winners Cup-tournament will get underway at the Noordersportpark, the home of Sparks Haarlem in Haarlem (Netherlands).
Eight teams will compete in the tournament, which was won by Sparks Haarlem last year.
As Cupholder, Sparks Haarlem will be one of the participating teams, as is Roef! from Moergestel.
Also on Monday, the 46th edition of the European Premier Cup will get underway in Castions di Strada and Buttrio in Italy.
Dutch reigning champion Neptunus and Olympia Haarem, which won the Cup last year, will represent the Netherlands in Italy.
In Haarlem, Sparks Haarlem and Roef! will be joined by Bonn Capitals (Germany), Crazy Chicklets Wiener Neustadt (Austria), Les Pharaons d'Evry-Courcouronnes (France), Saronno (Italy), Sant Boi (Spain) and Tempo Praha (Czechia).
The first game is scheduled for 9 AM on Monday-morning, which will be the first of five games to be played on the opening day.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, also beginning at 9 AM, six games will be played.
On Thursday, five games are scheduled with the first one beginning at 11:15 AM.
But the following day, on Friday, the first game again will begin at 9 AM to be followed by five more on that day, ending the preliminary round.
On Saturday, August 24, the tournament will end with the playing of the four deciding placement games.
The day begins at 12:30 PM with the game for seventh and eighth place.
In the evening, the Final will begin at 8 PM.
Schedules European Cup Winners Cup & European Premier Cup
Schedule, Box Scores, Play-by-Play, Livestream European Cup Winners Cup, Haarlem (Netherlands)
Schedule, Box Scores, Play-by-Play, Livestream European Premier Cup, Castions di Strada/Buttrio (Italy)
Through the years, the Noordersportpark has been the site for many international tournaments.
From 1980 on, ten editons were organized of the Haarlem Softball Week with one of the tournaments being the Olympic Qualifying Tournament and another one being the Intercontinental Cup.
In 1981, the European Championship Women's Softball was held at the site in Haarlem.
Hereafter, the Championship was held three more times in the Netherlands: Bussum (1992), Amsterdam (2007) and Rosmalen (2015).
Next month will mark the fifth, as the Championship then will be played in Vleuten, De Bilt and Nieuwegein.
Also, several European Cup-tournaments were played on the Noordersportpark.
The history of the European Cup-tournaments began in 1978.
Back then, the first edition was held of the European Cup Tournament, which is now the Premier Cup.
That tournament was organized by Dutch DSS, but was played at the Noordersportpark in Haarlem (Netherlands), then the site of HHC.
The first thirteen tournaments were all won by Dutch clubs, including eight by Terrasvogels, which still is the most successful Dutch club.
Overall, Terrasvogels is the recordholder with nine wins.
In the past two editions, Olympia Haarlem won the Premier Cup.
Through the years, the Cup was also won by HCAW (7x), Sparks Haarlem (4x), Bloemendaal (2x), Tex Town Tigers (2x) and HHC (1x).
Since 1978, the tournament was organized fourteen times in the Netherlands on eight different locations.
Sparks Haarlem hosted the event two times, but predecessor HHC hosted the event in 1979 together with Terrasvogels.
Sparks then organized the tournament in 2007 (also sharing with Terrasvogels, which then also hosted games on its site in Santpoort) and in 2017, which also was the last time the event took place in the Netherlands.
The first Cup Winners Cup-tournament was organized in 1992 in Pribram (Czechia) and then was called European Cup II.
The tournament was won by Genova (Italy).
In 1994, Twins Oosterhout was the first Dutch club to win this Cup.
Since 1992, the Cup Winners Cup-tournament was organized six times in the Netherlands, including one on the site of Sparks Haarlem.
That was back in 1996 when Sparks lost the final against Amsterdam Pirates.
The last time the tournament was hosted in the Netherlands was in 2018 when it took place in Capelle a/d IJssel on the site of Euro Stars.
The B-Pool was organized twice in the Netherlands.
Since 1992, the Cup Winners Cup was won by a Dutch club sixteen times.
Last year, Sparks Haarlem won the Cup for the fifth time.
That equaled Terrasvogels as the most successful Dutch club.
Recordholder is Forlė from Italy with six wins.
Other Dutch clubs to win the Cup Winners Cup were Olympia Haarlem (3x), Amsterdam Pirates (2x) and Twins Oosterhout (1x).
Two European Cup Men Softball Tournaments were also played at the Noordersportpark in Haarlem.
(August 17)
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