On the evening of 19 September 1912, two amateur sports clubs in Breda, ADVENDO and NOAD, sat down to merge into a single football club. The meeting nearly collapsed before it began. NOAD wanted the new club called NOAD, with ADVENDO awkwardly buried inside it. ADVENDO refused. A man named Frans Konert finally proposed a compromise: NAC, for NOAD ADVENDO Combinatie. The room agreed. More than a century later, the full unfolded name of the club still reads like a Victorian motto: Nooit Opgeven Altijd Doorzetten, Aangenaam Door Vermaak En Nuttig Door Ontspanning, Combinatie Breda. Never Give Up, Always Persevere. Pleasant for Entertainment and Useful for Relaxation. Combination, Breda.
Antoon Verlegh, nicknamed De Rat, played for NAC from its foundation in 1912 until his retirement in 1931. He went on to become one of the most influential administrators in the Royal Dutch Football Association. On 12 March 1960 he suffered a fatal heart attack while driving and was found in a small lake near Prinsenbeek, and on 14 March 1960 the news broke across Breda. Today the club's home is named for him: the Rat Verlegh Stadion. In 1921 he was on the team that achieved NAC's single national championship, beating Ajax, Be Quick 1887, and Go Ahead in the Dutch Championship competition. The 1920s and 1930s were the club's first golden age. Six Southern Division titles, six perfectly technical seasons, and in 1935 the distinction of becoming the first Dutch club to fly to an away match, in this case against GVAV.
In 1975 the NAC board made a small scheduling decision with enormous cultural consequences: home matches would now be played on Saturday evenings. A cluster of fanatic supporters gathered on a single stand and never left. The combination of evening light, beer, and stubborn local pride gave birth to the Avondje NAC, the NAC Evening, which became Dutch football shorthand for an intimidating, flamboyant, Burgundian home atmosphere. On 6 October 1979 the intensity boiled over in the most literal way possible: during a match against Feyenoord, a linesman was struck by an ashtray. Riots broke out, the referee called the match, and the Ashtray Incident entered Dutch football folklore. NAC was both punished and proud.
Few clubs in Europe have ridden the elevator between divisions as often as NAC. Relegation, promotion, near-bankruptcy, financial rescue, relegation again. In 1996 NAC moved to its new stadium, then called the FUJIFILM Stadium, intending regular European football. By 1999 they were relegated. The club had bought sixty players in four seasons and overspent on the stadium. Investors bought the ground. Then in January 2003 the City of Breda purchased the stadium outright to save the club, and NAC officially added Breda to its name as a public thank-you. In 2006 the ground was renamed for Rat Verlegh. NAC qualified for the UEFA Europa League in 2009. By 2010 the club was again unstable, losing 3.2 million euros in a single season, with a debt that reached 7.1 million euros by March 2011. The Eerste Divisie, then the Eredivisie, then the Eerste Divisie. In May 2017 NAC won promotion back to the top flight against NEC Nijmegen, Cyriel Dessers scoring four of the five aggregate goals. In May 2019 they were down again. In June 2024 they were back, beating Excelsior 6-2 at home to clinch the play-offs after five seasons of exile.
NAC's home shirt is yellow with a black diagonal stripe, a design that has come and gone through four different crests in the club's history. The original 1912 crest, a black shield with a yellow diagonal and the letters N.A.C., was replaced in 1968 for reasons no one quite recorded. Another redesign followed in 1974, after a board reshuffle, designed by a board member's daughter. The fourth crest came in 1996 with the move to the new stadium, adding two lions and three crosses borrowed from Breda's civic arms. In 2012, the club's centenary, the supporters paid out of their own pockets to reinstate the original 1912 crest permanently. The black diagonal stripe across yellow has outlasted three boards, two near-bankruptcies, and roughly half a dozen relegations.
On 7 June 1989, NAC player Andro Knel died in a plane accident. He was popular at NAC and had played at Sparta Rotterdam before his transfer. Hundreds of fans from both clubs gathered at a temporary monument to honor him. The shared mourning between two sets of supporters who normally had little reason to mix created a lasting bond between NAC and Sparta fans that still survives today. NAC has lost players before and since, and the club's official motto, Nooit Opgeven Altijd Doorzetten, has been tested as much off the field as on it. The Saturday-evening crowd in the Rat Verlegh Stadion still believes the motto. They keep showing up to prove it.
Coordinates 51.58 N, 4.74 E. The Rat Verlegh Stadion sits in Breda's western neighborhoods, visible as a distinctive oval roof from cruising altitude. Cruise at 3,000 to 5,000 feet for the best view. Nearest airports: Breda Seppe (EHSE) 15 km west; Antwerp (EBAW) 50 km south; Eindhoven (EHEH) 50 km east. On match nights the floodlights are visible from miles away.