Frans Hals you no doubt know, but at the time there was another great living in Haarlem. Who? Judith Leyster. An artistic and enterprising woman. At twenty-four she was admitted to the Guild of St. Luke. From then on she was a professional painter and could start her own studio and sell paintings. If you look at her work, you can see clear influences of Frans Hals. And let that be the very painter with whom she once had a "quarrel. It was because one of the students from her studio had walked over to Frans' studio. Just like that, without notice and while the student still had to pay the tuition fee for a quarter of a year. Judith did not take it and the matter was submitted to the guild. Their verdict: Judith was right. She got part of the tuition back and Frans had to send the student away.

Another celebrity who ran around Haarlem is Ruud Gullit. Or rather, he ran more, on the fields of the Haarlemsche Football Club Haarlem to be exact. This club was founded in 1889 and in addition to Gullit, other top players played at "the redbrands. Like the first soccer player of the year, Martin Haar. And Kick Smit, star player and international in the 1930s and 1940s. And a little less long ago: internationals like Arthur Numan and Barry van Galen. And none other than Dick Advocaat took his first steps as a coach at this club, which unfortunately went bankrupt in 2010. To be clear: this is not that other HFC, which is the Royal HFC. This soccer club was founded in 1879 and still exists. And how! Every year on one of the fields of the 'Royal' the New Year's match is played between Men's 1 and former internationals. And so then greats like Frank de Boer, Sjaak Swart and Aron Winter walk across the royal fields in Haarlem.