Goal fest in the women’s league: the most prolific start to a season ever

The previous record dated back to the 2011–12 season. Back then, 110 goals were scored in the first four match rounds. The current season is therefore exactly one goal ahead of that figure after 24 matches. The starts to the 2009–10 and 2012–13 seasons were also particularly high-scoring, with 108 goals in both seasons.

This massive goal tally is not down to just one team. Den Bosch and Kampong are the league’s most prolific teams, with seventeen goals each. SCHC follows closely behind with sixteen goals. Amsterdam has scored thirteen after four matches.

Behind them are Hurley with ten, and Rotterdam and Pinoké with nine goals each. The contrast with the bottom of the table is striking: Victoria have scored just twice so far, HGC three times and HDM four times.

The three highest-scoring teams — Den Bosch, Kampong and SCHC — have already accounted for fifty of the 111 goals between them.

Matla and Jansen off to a flying start
The individual statistics are also impressive. Frédérique Matla tops the scoring charts after four match rounds with nine goals. The Den Bosch striker has been prolific in her first four league matches this season and has now scored in ten consecutive Hoofdklasse match rounds, including the final round of last season.

Yibbi Jansen follows with eight goals. For the SCHC penalty corner specialist, this is her most productive start to a league campaign ever after four matches. Kampong forward Iris de Kemp is, surprisingly, in third place with six goals.

Record number of hat-trick scorers too
Another indication of this unprecedentedly high-scoring start to the season: after four match rounds, eight different players have already scored a hat-trick. That, too, is a record for the Hoofdklasse Women.

The previous record stood at seven players scoring hat-tricks in the first four match rounds, set in the 2010–11 season. In 2013–14, six different players had scored at least three goals in a single match at the same stage.

This season, the hat-trick spree began on the opening day. In the Den Bosch v Pinoké match (7–1), both Frédérique Matla and Charlotte Englebert scored three times. In match round three, Ankelein Baardemans, Yibbi Jansen and Bente van der Veldt followed suit. Last Sunday, three more names were added to the list: Sanne Caarls, Iris de Kemp and Jip Dicke.

Most hat-tricks after four match rounds

• 8 – 2026–2027
• 7 – 2010–2011
• 6 – 2013–2014
• 5 – 2020–2021
• 5 – 2023–2024

This means that, after four match rounds, the current season has seen both the most goals and the most different hat-trick scorers in Hoofdklasse history. The first 24 matches of the 2026–2027 season have at least one clear trend: goals are certainly not in short supply at the moment.