BSC Alphians celebrates first club shirt, a link to 50 years of history

BSC Alphians marked its 50th anniversary year with a piece of cloth that says more about the club than any plaque or parade could: the first Alphians club shirt, now worn by the oldest still-active member. The shirt, shown in the club’s 9 April update, was presented as a direct link to the earliest days of baseball and softball in Alphen aan den Rijn, and as proof that the club’s memory still lives on in the people who kept playing.

That matters at Alphians because the club has always framed itself as a volunteer-run association built from local initiative. Its origin story goes back to 1976, when two members of B.V.O. wanted to add baseball and softball as summer sports alongside basketball. They reached out to former baseball players, and on 2 June 1976 about 70 people gathered in the Rijnstreekhal to launch the new section. The club later developed into Baseball Vereniging Alphen aan den Rijn, now BSC Alphians, and the shirt now being celebrated carries that whole stretch of history in one object.

A shirt like that does more than survive in a cupboard. It shows how Alphians wants current players, from youth teams to senior sides, to understand where the club came from and why its identity is tied to continuity as much as competition. In a season built around the 50-year jubilee, the club is using its own past to connect generations: the first shirt, the founding stories and the people who were there at the start are being placed alongside today’s players rather than left in archive boxes.

That approach was visible again when Alphians opened its jubilee season with founder Ben Ponsioen and Irene Ponsioen, whom the club identifies as the first pitcher of the softbaldames in 1976. On that day, Heren 1 beat Zwijndrecht 12-2, a result that gave the celebration a current-day baseball edge as the club looked back. The 50th season was officially opened at 13:45, but the message was broader than a ceremonial first pitch: Alphians was showing that its present still draws strength from its beginning.

The anniversary year continues with a jubilee party scheduled for Sunday, 21 June 2026 at 13:00. For Alphians, the first club shirt is not just the oldest garment in the room. It is the clearest reminder that 50 years of club history began with a handful of people, a local hall and a summer idea that never left.