Argyle Going Dutch

The Pilgrims will be based at Delden, a town half the size of Saltash, near Enschede, close to the border with Germany.

The squad is staying in a sports hotel, which manager Derek Adams knows well, having used it as a training base several times whilst in charge of Ross County.

“We’re looking forward to it,” said Derek. “I’ve been there four or five times to the same place and I know how it works; it’ll be good for me to go there again and compare the team.

“We always take them there the penultimate week before the season. We do the hard work here, and then we go across there and finish off the preparation.

“There are tennis courts; a golf course; tenpin bowling, a gymnasium; sauna and Jacuzzi; and we can go out and have a bike ride. So we have got everything on the doorstep.”

The trip will also see the Pilgrims play their penultimate game of the pre-season, against Dutch second-tier side MVV Maastricht on Tuesday, July 26.

As well as the chance to hone fitness and tactics, the trip offers Argyle’s new-look squad the opportunity to get acquainted, with 13 new players having arrived at Home Park in the summer. 

Derek said: "The players will be away for five nights and that gives them time to get to know each other because we have got a new group of players."

DELDEN, where Argyle will be based during their Dutch stay, is a town in the Overijssel province of Holland.

DELDEN covers an area of 5.96 sq km. In 2013, its population was 7,400. Plymouth is 79.84 sq km, with a population of 261,546.

THE most famous landmark in Delden is Castle Twickel, the estate of which covers more than 4,000 hectares and includes 150 farms with agricultural land and meadows, interspersed with moorland, fens and woods. The oak woods are famous for the quality of the wood they produce. 

ARGYLE will face Maatschappelijke Voetbal Vereniging Maastricht on Tuesday, July 26, kick-off 7pm. 

MAASTRICHT play in the Eerste Divisie, the second highest tier of football in the Netherlands, having finished 10th of the 19 teams in 2015-16, 24 points behind champions Sparta Rotterdam.

MVV have played in the top flight of Dutch football, the Eredivisie, several times. They were founder members in 1954, and remained there until relegation in 1976. Since then, they have yo-yoed between the two divisions, playing in the Eredivisie from 1978-82; from 1984-86; from 1988-95; and from 1997-2000. 

HOME for Maastricht is the De Geusselt Stadium, which has a capacity of approximately 10,000. The club’s crest is based on the city’s coat of arms, an armed angel holding a red shield with a white star. Maastricht are nicknamed De Sterrendragers – the Wearers of Stars.

BECAUSE of their crest and city coat of arms, Maastricht’s home kit is a red shirt with white shorts and socks; their away kit is a white shirt with red shorts and socks. 

IN 1973, MVV’s Dutch international Willy Brokamp was top scorer in the Eredivsie. Other famous past players include Cees Schapendonk, Erik Meijer, Eric Gerets, Joey Gudjonsson, Theo Snelders, Igor Tomasic and Dick Nanninga, who scored Holland’s goal in the 1978 World Cup final.