Derby of the North

The rivalry between Groningen and Heerenveen is a relatively young one. Although the first match between the two clubs was played in 1974, the rivalry didn't really commence until the mid-1990s. In the 1980s, Groningen was the uncontested biggest and most successful football club in the northern provinces. During this decade, Groningen was a regular in the Eredivisie, got the highest attendances in the country outside the traditional top teams Ajax, Feyenoord, and PSV.,[2] and regularly competed in Europe. Meanwhile, SC Heerenveen would not play in the Eredivisie until 1990, and also Cambuur Leeuwarden did not compete on the first tier of Dutch football in the 1980s. Only Veendam joined FC Groningen in the Eredivisie in two discontinuous seasons the 1980s, yet went straight back down on both occasions. Being seen as the representative of top national football in the north of the Netherlands, the media referred to FC Groningen as the Pride of the North. FC Groningen's club anthem, written in the 1980s, sings about the people from the three northern provinces Groningen, Friesland, and Drenthe being united in their support for FC Groningen.

Things started to change in the early 1990s. FC Groningen began to fall from the sub-top of national football and finally relegated from the Eredivisie in 1998. SC Heerenveen promoted to the Eredivisie in 1993 and started to move up the Eredivisie table in subsequent years. The pinnacle of Heerenveen's rise came in 2000, when the club finished second in the Eredivisie and qualified for the Champions League. In that same season, FC Groningen played in the Eerste Divisie. Although FC Groningen won promotion back to the top tier that year, the 1999-2000 season was a testimony of a complete reversal of positions in northern Dutch football since the 1950s. Heerenveen's attendance surpassed that of FC Groningen as well. From an average of under 5000 in the late 1980s, Heerenveen's average attendance rose to over 25.000 in the early 21st century.[3]

Heerenveen rose to national prominence under the guidance of chairman Riemer van der Velde. Van der Velde constructed an image of SC Heerenveen as a 'family club' that distinguished itself in Dutch football by a welcoming atmosphere and absence of crowd trouble. Heerenveen's image as family club was emphasized by the public notoriety of Van der Velde's wife Annie, who together with her husband became the friendly face of the club. Heerenveen also gained wide sympathy by embracing its Frisian identity. The province of Friesland has a strong separate identity, which mainly stems from having its own provincial language. SC Heerenveen expresses its Frisian identity by modeling its jersey after the Frisian flag, and the performance of the Frisian provincial anthem prior to each home game. Such expressions of Frisian identity are not considered as a rejection of Dutch identity. Rather, Frisian culture and identity are conceived as a specific yet inseparable part of Dutch national history and culture. Therefore, manifestations of Frisian culture, such as the Elfstedentocht, are equally considered to be expressions of Dutch culture, and also are popular beyond the province of Friesland. Hence, SC Heerenveen could manifest itself as a football club with a Frisian identity while simultaneously gaining nationwide sympathy. In the early 21st century, the mainstream Dutch media referred to SC Heerenveen as "everybody's second favorite team": a reference to the club's new nationwide appeal as a result of its Frisian and 'family-friendly' image, combined with great sportive results at the beginning of the century.

Heerenveen's family-friendly image stood in sharp contrast with that of FC Groningen, which in the late 1990s had made national headlines with multiple violent incidents involving its supporters. Heerenveen benefited by widening the catchment area of its sponsorship, also attracting sponsors from the province and city of Groningen. Simultaneously, SC Heerenveen began to brand itself as the Pride of the North, which until then solely had been a reference to FC Groningen. In these circumstances, the rivalry intensified, initially in particular from the side of FC Groningen. FC Groningen fans employed an alternative discours, in which FC Groningen's 'thuggish' image was celebrated as an expression of a 'people's club' with a passionate following, while Heerenveen's family-friendly status was dismissed as that of a club with 'fake' supporters. This alternative estimation of the image of SC Heerenveen was popular among the small core of fanatic supporters of several Dutch clubs, but evidently had very little back-up in the mainstream media.

The contrasting images of SC Heerenveen and FC Groningen began to wane as the first decade of the 21st century progressed. In early 2006, FC Groningen left its outdated Oosterpark Stadion for the modern Euroborg, where due to superior safety conditions mass crowd troubles at FC Groningen matches became a thing of the past. In their new stadium, FC Groningen regained some of its former status as an occasional challenger of the national top teams, and began to close the gap with SC Heerenveen. Around the same time, at SC Heerenveen there formed supporters groups that started to behave in similar ways as supporters at other clubs, also engaging in occasional abusive chants. Thereby, also the distinctive friendly image of Heerenveen fans attenuated.

sc Heerenveen has won the Derby of the North a total of 27 times, whereas FC Groningen has won it on 18 occasions. Yet, from a FC Groningen perspective it can be argued that the record balances in Heerenveen's favour because the two sides did not meet during FC Groningen's heyday in the 1980s, due to Heerenveen being in the Eerste Divisie at the time. However, since FC Groningen regained some of its former strength after moving to the Euroborg Stadium in 2006, Heerenveen has still won most of the derby matches.

Both sc Heerenveen and FC Groningen celebrated the opening of their current stadium with a 2-0 derby victory. Heerenveen did so, against FC Groningen, in the Abe Lenstra Stadion on 26 Augustus 1994. FC Groningen played their first official match in the Euroborg, against Heerenveen, on Friday 13 January 2006. FC Groningen and sc Heerenveen have never met in the national cup or play-offs.