History See Names Stadium Capacity 4,350 Head coach Erik Braal Founded 1951 | Stadium MartiniPlaza Location Netherlands Ground MartiniPlaza | |
 | ||
Leagues Dutch Basketball League,
FIBA Europe Cup Team colors White, Blue (original), Navy Championships 5 Dutch Championships
4 Dutch Cups
2 Dutch Supercup Profiles | ||
Donar is a professional basketball club based in Groningen, Netherlands. The club competes in the Dutch Basketball League (DBL) and its home arena is MartiniPlaza, which has a seating capacity of 4,310 people. For sponsorship reasons the club was known as "GasTerra Flames" till 2014.
Contents
- History
- 20092014 Successful GasTerra years
- 2014present Donar
- Names
- Depth chart
- Trophies
- Supporters club
- References
Donar is one of the traditional first division clubs along with Den Bosch, as it entered the league 47 years ago. The club did win the national championship five times; in 1982, 2004, 2010, 2014 and 2016. Donar was runner-up in the seasons: 1998, 2006, 2011, 2015. There are also four NBB Cups – the domestic cup competition – in the honor list of Donar; they won the cup in 2005, 2011, 2014 and 2015.
Donar has the most fans in the Netherlands, the club has somewhere around 1300 season ticket holders and sells the MartiniPlaza out on a regular basis in the Playoffs.
History
In 1881, gymnastics club Wodan and fencing club Mars, both part of the student corps Vindicat, merged to form GSSV Donar. In 1951 the basketball department of this club was founded. In 1970 the club promoted to the highest basketball league.
In 1973 the club separated from Vindicat and got their first sponsor, Nationale-Nederlanden. This allowed the team to play in the much bigger Martinihal "Events hall". On September 20, 1980, Donar won against BOB Oud-Beijerland with a score of 158-58. The score of 158 was repeated that same season against the same team (158-82) and never since. The difference of 100 points has never been repeated.
After the first championship in 1982, Nationale Nederlanden announced to stop as sponsor. After one year of playing under their name, Donar was demoted to the rayon league. Donar became champion that year and promoted to the promotion league. In 1986, Donar returned to the highest league; where they remained ever since. On February 1, 1991, the Basketball Business Club (BBC) was founded. In 2000/2001, the Martinihal was remodeled to become Martiniplaza and home games were moved to the new sports hall in the complex. This hall was renovated in 2006 when new seating was placed.
2009–2014: Successful GasTerra years
In 2009 GasTerra became the main sponsor of the club, that was renamed the GasTerra Flames. Head coach Marco van den Berg stayed and a whole new team was put together. In the 2009–10 season, Donar won the 3rd national championship in club history by beating West-Brabant Giants 4–1 in the Finals. Earlier, in the regular season, Flames finished in first place with a 33–3 record. The key players of the team were the Americans Matt Haryasz, Matt Bauscher, Jason Dourisseau and Robby Bostain.
The whole squad that won the 2010 title returned for the next season, except for Tim Blue. In 2010 they became the first Dutch basketball team to take part in the qualifying rounds of the new Euroleague. In the regular season Donar ended on the second place, while Jason Dourisseau was named the Dutch League MVP. The team won a second NBB Cup in 2011, after beating WCAA Giants The team did eventually lost in the DBL Finals to Zorg en Zekerheid Leiden 4–3 in an historic game 7 which included three overtimes.
Head coach Marco van den Berg left after the 2010–11 season and Hakim Salem, former ABC Amsterdam coach was acquired. The team brought experienced players to the team like David Bell and Alex Wesby but they couldn't meet the set expectations. In the cup competition, Flames was defeated in the quarterfinals and in the DBL semifinals it lost to EiffelTowers Den Bosch.
During the 2012–13 season Hakim Salem was fired and the Croatian coach Ivica Skelin was acquired. Despite the coaching change, team was still swept 3–0 by Zorg en Zekerheid Leiden in the DBL semifinals.
Before the 2013–14 season it was announced that GasTerra's sponsor contract ended after the season. Flames acquired Dutch top players Arvin Slagter and Ross Bekkering from defending champion ZZ Leiden and three new Americans were added to the team. On March 30, 2014 Flames won the NBB Cup by beating Zorg en Zekerheid Leiden 79–71.
In the 2014 Playoffs Flames beat BC Apollo easily in the quarterfinals (2–0) and later beat ZZ Leiden after a tough series (3–2). On June 1, 2014 Donar won its 4th national title. They beat SPM Shoeters Den Bosch 76–68 in game 7 of the Finals series.
2014–present: Donar
In the 2014 offseason, the club announced that in the previous season, a deficit of €135,000 had arisen after mistakes made regarding the budget. Therefore, the club had to cut into costs for the 2014–15 season and the budet was reduced. For the 2014–15 season, the club is known again as Donar. The team won the Supercup against Leiden and the NBB Cup Final against Den Bosch, the DBL Finals were lost 4–1 against Den Bosch.
In the 2015 offseason, Ivica Skelin left the club and was replaced by Erik Braal. In July 2015, former league MVP Jason Dourisseau returned to Donar. In the 2015–16 season, Donar won its 5th DBL title after beating Landstede Basketbal 4–1 in the Finals.
Names
The club has a rich history of names, mainly because of the different main sponsors of the team. One of the former names, Donar, is still widely used by the fans.
Depth chart
Trophies
Supporters club
The current supporters club was founded on August 26, 1997 under the name Vikings, a nod to the Norse god Donar (Thor). After the club lost Donar from its name, this link became less clear. In 2010 it was decided to change the name of the supporters club to SV Donar (Supporters club Donar). The supporters club had 330 members as of the start of season 2010/2011.