From Leeuwenstraat to Leeuwinnenstraat
Back in July, ahead of the UEFA Women’s European Championship, we worked with the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) and Nike to create a new crest featuring a fierce Lioness for the Netherlands Women’s National Team. Known as the Oranje Leeuwinnen (Orange Lionesses), the new crest aimed to inspire a new generation of players to ‘Wear What You Are’.
Last week, the team won the European Championship, becoming national heroes. To celebrate, we took the Leeuwinnen to the streets – literally. In Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Hilversum and Renkum, we changed the name of four ‘lion’ streets to its female counterpart – ‘Leeuwinnenstraat’. Too right. Read the full story below.
By Christopher Cryer
Sorry, Dutch post men and women. It was never meant to go this far.
You see, a month ago we helped change the badge of the Netherlands Women’s National Football team in time for them to play in EURO 2017.
It was a crazy idea, but also made complete sense. Because they’re called ‘OranjeLeeuwinnen’ (Orange Lionesses) yet they’d been wearing a Lion as their badge.
It wasn’t easy. But with the passion of the players themselves, Nike, and the KNVB, we got them wearing what they are – mighty Lionesses.
Great! Fantastic! Geweldig!
But then we thought…what if they win the EURO tournament? Frankly, it was unlikely. Because if you know your women’s football, you’ll know that Germany have won it for the last six times. You’ll also know that Netherlands are ranked 12th in the FIFA World rankings, whereas their potential challengers in the semi-finals, England, ranked 5th.
So, if they somehow won this thing it’d be a big deal. They’d be national heroes. And what do you do with national heroes? You name streets after them. And that’s what we planned to do, even if we had to do it guerrilla style.
But they weren’t going to win, were they?
Spoiler alert: they did. They won the whole thing! The Orange Lionesses made history in changing their badge, then did it again with becoming European Champions for the first time.
And that’s how we ended up changing the ‘Lion Street’ signs of the Netherlands into ‘Lionesses Streets’.
So, while you may be annoyed at us for making it harder for you to deliver your mail to Lion Street, postwomen and postmen of the Netherlands. We hope you’ll join us in chanting, “Hup Holland hup!” for the new European Champions.
