Abe Lenstra was a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 football

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 player and national football icon in the 1950s. He was also a Frisia

Frisia

Frisia is a coastal region along the southeastern corner of the North Sea, i.e. the German Bight. Frisia is the traditional homeland of the Frisians, a Germanic people who speak Frisian, a language group closely related to the English language...

n legend, most notably with the club where he made his name as a football player, SC Heerenveen.

He played for a host of clubs such as SC Enschede, Enschedese Boys, PH: DOS '19, WSV, DOS Kampen

DOS Kampen

DOS Kampen is a Dutch football club based in the city of Kampen, currently competing in the Eerste Klasse.-External links:...

 and vv LTC. However, it was with VV Heerenveen (the previous name of current day SC Heerenveen) where he first was selected for the Dutch national team

Netherlands national football team

The Netherlands National Football Team represents the Netherlands in association football and is controlled by the Royal Dutch Football Association , the governing body for football in the Netherlands...

.

With the national team, for which he played a total of 47 caps scoring 33 goals, he struck a partnership with other internationals such as Faas Wilkes

Faas Wilkes

Servaas "Faas" Wilkes was a Dutch football forward, who earned a total of 38 caps for the Dutch national team, in which he scored 35 goals...

 and Kees Rijvers

Kees Rijvers

Kees Rijvers is a retired Dutch footballer who was active as a midfielder. Rijvers made his debut at NAC Breda and also played for AS Saint-Étienne, Stade Français and Feijenoord....

. He was known to stand by his principles and objected to play for the national squad if he was not selected for the position he favoured, which explains his relatively low number of international caps.

It was Lenstra who put the name of SC Heerenveen on the footballing map, where the club was also fondly referred to as 'Abeveen'. In 1977, long after he retired from football, he was diagnosed with having a brain haemorrhage and spent the remainder of his life using a wheelchair. He died in 1985, just a few days before the first ever international match in the stadium that a year later would bear his name.

Today, his name has been closely associated with SC Heerenveen and its stadium: The (first and second) Abe Lenstra Stadion

Abe Lenstra Stadion

Abe Lenstra Stadion is a football stadium in Heerenveen, Netherlands. It is currently used mostly for the home matches of Eredivisie club Heerenveen.The current capacity is 26,000.-The name Abe Lenstra Stadion:...

has been named in his honour as a lasting memorial to this Dutch football hero.