this is a question for those who are familiar with the history of Danish (*cough* JR / TL) and Dutch badminton (*cough* Yong , Eva). can you tell me in whatever level of details the history behind Danish and Dutch badminton ? i see that both in Denmark and Netherlands, the badminton system is very well organized and very well planned, with club distributed in each city. organized and scheduled matches are played between clubs. to get such a system going, there must be a huge amount of effort behind it and to justify that, there must be a history of support and enthusiasm from the organizers and players. i am interested in knowing how badminton participation evolved over the years. i can only dream to wonder if such is possible in other countries. i apologize in advance if your country also have such a organized system, i think France and UK also has it but i am not sure, my knowledge only go so far... for reference, here is an article on what you can expect from the Danish system: http://www.badders.com/viewpoint.fmi?seshid=&vid=34
Netherlands and France??? Denmark, England, Sweden and Germany are the most well organized states in europe! But for sure not the Netherlands...
well, i am not too interested in finding out who is better, but instead why they are good and how the systems were evolved...
I once had a book giving the history of badminton and how it evolved. I think I loaned it to a friend but he has never returned it to me. The Danes have always been strong in Badminton. Even before Indonesia came on the scene, the Danes and Malaysia dominated world badminton. Great Danes like Finn Kobbero, Hammagard Hansen and Malaysians like Wong Peng Soon (the father of the backhand clear) and Eddy Choong were household names.
- Ahem, Since no response I'll bung in tjis 20 year old dinosaur article, better than nothing. Some things must have changed. Save and zoom and read.
Kwun, this site might interest you : http://www.badminton.me.uk/ It is written by an english guy, who explains the advantages of the french system, and is trying to bring it to England... I can give more details later, but I don't have time right now!
Danish history!! Hi Kwun!! As you might know danish badminton has always been around. Strangely enough badminton seem to have been popular in Denmark for a long time. Therefore, we developed great players and they became stars in Denmark. When you´re little you look up to the stars in your country and you want to be like them. In Denmark the some of the stars were badmintonplayers. It became tradition to develop great badmintonplayers in Denmark and with that the danish clubstructure appeared as the good example to follow. A lot of volunteers helped in the clubs being coaches, linejudges etc. I also think it´s easier to develop players when the toplevel in the country is at highest level. It´s easier for the young players growing up to identify themselves and aim their goals towards becoming better than the former generation. One of the things I believe is the foremost important thing to do when you´ve reached international toplevel is to give back to the system. To be a good example and show great sportsmanship. To look down through the system and help the young players take the right decisions and help them to choose what´s best for them. Therefore, I´ve joined a danish project called Projekt Peak. In Projekt Peak we try to develop young players into topplayers. A lot of stars elbow their way up through the system to become the best not caring about the ones they leave behind. This is one of our maingoals to prevent. We try to make a badmintontraining for young talented players a place for everyone to develop by complementing assets like being a great motivator for the other players, be good at coaching each other and to delevop together instead of one by one. Kind Regards Jonas
I've always wondered how a little country like Denmark has been the only non-Asian one that continues to produce players competitive at the highest levels. What a testimony to their system and those responsible for maintaining it!
dutch badminton I have no time to eliminate now on the history of Dutch badminton, but unfortunately it is not nearly as organized and lively as in Denmark and some other European countries. The lack in level of competition caused some of our best players to leave to Denmark (Jeroen van Dijk) or play competition in the German league. We've never been a badminton country and on top of that the dutch badminton association is having financial problems and does not really succeed in making badminton more popular.
totally agree. other than a good national coaching staff, there must be a very good system in place that trains players from the grass root level and let them advance all the way to national. JR, how about tell us how you started and your journey from beginner to a professional? surprising to hear ppl say that Dutch system isn't good. from what i know, there are organized leagues games and seasons where many clubs plays against each other. Danish, German and other countries must have an excellent system that i'd love to hear more about! everything is relative, in the US, even in the hotbed of badminton like California, there is hardly any organized system at all. everybody can open up their own tournaments, no league match, no clubs nor teams. you can think of a head-less organization where all the members just do whatever they like with no system whatsoever.
hmmm Compared to California we have a great system here in the Netherlands It's difficult to judge when you don't have a comparison with other countries. Maybe people that have lived and played in at least two different countries can elaborate on the differences.
I haven't forgotten this thread, actually i did some effort to investigate about the history of the league system in the Netherlands. It is true that among other countries, Netherlans is one of the very few which do organize league matches on many different levels and where, especially at the lower levels, travel time for away-matches of only 15-30 minutes isn't strange at all. For instance, if a team is playing regular league (mixed teams) at the lowest level in the area where i live, and the team promotes every year, it would take 8 years to promote through all local levels before the team enters national leauge. In the national league, the team theoretically has to promote another 4 years to enter the highest national league. Compared to, for instance Austria, there are only 2 levels : lower level league and national league. The big question is how it evolved in the Netherlands. Well, there is not direct information available on this matter at the dutch association. There is an archive where historical matters are part of, but it is not easy accesseble and furthermore it would definitely take lots of time to see structure in the files and see a history in the beginning of league matches in the Netherlands. I can only speculate on this, and i think the distance matter, better said the lack of geographical distance between clubs played a big rol in the realization of local league matches, where players were able to play against other players than their own clubmates.
Netherlands I'm also interested in this.. Yong, where do you live in the Netherlands? Perhaps we investigate the history further together and contact the NBB to see if they can tell us more..? Grtz., Mark / Eindhoven
I'm no expert on Dutch badminton, but as a member of a club which is playing at the highest national level, I do have some practical information about the different competitive levels. Dutch competition is divided into 2 levels: national (higher) and district (lower). The national level is subdivided in 5 divisions: top league (highest), and 1st to 4th division (high to low). In the top league, 8 teams from all over the country play against each other. Former Indonesian ace, Mia Audina, is playing for one of the top league teams: Conservatrix/Velo, which clinched the title this year. The district or local level is divided into 6 sublevels: hoofdklasse (primary district level), overgangsklasse (transitional level), and 1st to 4th district level (high to low). Don't get distracted by the many different levels, it's really simpler than it sounds. At the district level, teams from within the same district play against each other. There are about 8 districts (regions), e.g. North, Center, East, North Holland-South, etc. There may be some differences between the various districts. Whereas in my district there are 6 sublevels, another district may have 8 or 10 sublevels, depending on the number of clubs and teams in that district. It is very well possible that a large club has more than 1 team that plays at the same level. For instance, my club has 4 teams at the 4th division level. In this case, the teams play in different groups which consist of 7-8 teams each. At the end of the season, the no. 1 of the group will automatically move up to a higher level. The no. 2 of the group may also move up, depending on the total points accumulated, compared to the other numbers 2 of the other groups. I wished that I could say that the Dutch system worked well, but I can't. Fact is that we're a 2nd rate badminton country in Europe. The only reason that our Uber cup team has done well is because of 2 foreign players who moved to Holland for one reason or another. What I've heard at my club is that there's a serious lack of govt funding, sponsors, poor policy of the Dutch badminton association. We have great junior players, many of which have become European champions, but they can't make a successful transition to the seniors. One of them plays at my club and I know and have played against 3 others. Most of them choose career over sports and when they enter college, their badminton suffers.
thanks Yong and novl for their insight. i think the system's structure is quite sound from the description. it is already much better than what i have heard in other places. to build such a structure with so many divisions is quite a feat as there not only need to have the organizations, but also to have the many participating clubs and teams.
Mark, nice to see more enthousiasm to investigate the history. I live in Schiedam i sent you a PM Greetings, Yong
