The Mandemakers Stadium is a football stadium located in Waalwijk. It is the home of the Dutch football club RKC Waalwijk.
The club was founded in 1940 as the Rooms Katholieke Combinatie (RKC) through the merger of HEC, WVB, and Hercules. When professional football was introduced in 1954, the club wasn’t yet a high-flyer and remained an amateur club. Over the years, RKC gradually worked its way up to the top of amateur football, twice winning the overall national amateur championship. In 1981, they defeated DOS Kampen, and in 1982, RKC retained the title by defeating IJsselmeervogels.
The club has played in Dutch professional football since 1984. RKC Waalwijk plays in yellow-blue shirts with blue shorts.
The enlightenment
Previously, the four masts of the Mandemakers Stadium held a total of 124 conventional 2000-watt fixtures (31 per mast). Now, there are a total of 80 LED fixtures, also of a lower wattage, at 1500 watts (20 LED fixtures per mast).
The energy savings could power 30 households for a year, or charge a smartphone over 15,000 times. There’s also a significant increase in light; previously, there was around 700 lux on the pitch, but now it’s over 900 lux. This high light quality is clearly visible during evening matches on the Fox switch channel, where all the first division matches are shown. The uniformity (light distribution) has also improved considerably. RKC Waalwijk is now enveloped in a beautiful blanket of light.
All in all, RKC Waalwijk is ready for a successful future in both sustainability and sporting terms.
RKC Waalwijk can dim training lights, orientation lights, and match lighting to various settings. The AAA-Lux LED lighting is easily controlled via a tablet in the stadium’s control room. All lighting functions are programmed into the latest ControlBox 2.0.
Stadium history
The stadium opened its doors in September 1996. However, RKC has been playing at this location for even longer: the Mandemakers Stadium was built on the same site as the old Sportpark Olympia (this stadium, due to its appearance and limited capacity, was also called “the Bicycle Parking”). For the first few years, the newly built stadium retained the name of its predecessor, but in 1999 it was renamed and given its current name.
When built, the stadium had a capacity of 6,000 spectators, spread across four stands. A moat was not built, as was initially intended; a high groundwater level prevented this. The stadium’s floodlights were acquired from NAC Breda, which was also building a new stadium at the time.
Later, sections of stands were built between the four stands, so the stadium no longer has any open corners. The Mandemakers Stadium now seats approximately 7,500 spectators. Artificial turf had been in place since 2014, but it was converted back to natural grass in the summer of 2019.
