For a town of roughly 20,000 people, Volendam takes football seriously. FC Volendam has spent stretches in the Dutch Eredivisie and produced a number of international players — most notably Edwin van der Sar, who grew up here, went on to captain the Netherlands national team, and won the Champions League with Manchester United. The tradition is taken as a point of civic pride.
The Kras Stadion holds around 8,000 spectators, modest by professional standards but reliably raucous on match nights. Tickets are generally available at the gate. If you are in town on a match day, it is worth going: the atmosphere is out of proportion with the venue's size, and watching a Volendam home game gives you a side of the town the harbour waterfront does not.