The other Dutch national sport. Well, the Dutch do rather better at hockey than at football. The capital has three main clubs; Amsterdam, Pinoké and Hurley.

Pinoké has a reputation for being the most fun of the three and Amsterdam is the snottiest. The third is Hurley. All three are located next to each other in the Amsterdam bos.

Now that the rights to broadcast top level football have been bought by a commercial broadcaster, the public channels have upped their hockey coverage which is forcing the clubs to become more professional.

More and more foreign players are being bought in as coaches and the like - in reality they are here to play for the top mens' teams. All three clubs have big youth sections. Pinoke, for example has 68 youth teams!

Three smaller Amsterdam clubs are: Athena in Watergraafsmeer (new and only has a youth section), FIT in Noord and Xenios next to the windmill by Badhoevendorp. There are several clubs in Amstelveen as well (Myra, Amstelveen).

www.knhb.nl the national hockey association, Dutch only