sentences:  Cricket was one of the most popular sports in the Netherlands in the 19th century, surpassed since by many other sports, most notably association football.Cricket even found enough of a following to survive the German occupation of the country between May 1940 and May 1945.The sport, famously dismissed as "unmanly and un-German" and "insufficiently violent" by Adolf Hitler himself, endured thanks in no small part to the dogged enthusiasm of local players, who shrugged off the requisitioning of grounds and restrictions on weekend travel – not to mention the presence of thousands of heavily armed Nazis and the bombing of the main sports dealers in Rotterdam – to organise as many as 300 matches a year.