Donar | |||
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Leagues |
Dutch Basketball League, FIBA Europe Cup |
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Founded | 1951 | ||
History | See Names | ||
Stadium | MartiniPlaza | ||
Capacity | 4,350 | ||
Location | Groningen, Netherlands | ||
Team colors | White, Blue (original), Navy |
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Head coach | Erik Braal | ||
Championships |
5 Dutch Championships 4 Dutch Cups 2 Dutch Supercup |
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Retired numbers | 1 (10) | ||
Website | www |
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Uniforms | |||
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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.
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.
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.