Extreme Football Tourism: BELGIUM: Solières Sport (B) (2002-2013, 2021-2022) / Solières Sport (2014-2021)

Complexe du Château Vert - terrain 1, Solières (formerly Solières Sport)

Belgium, province: Liège = Luik

19 X 2014 / Solières Sport - RJS Taminoise 1-1 / National Division 4D (= BE level 4)

Timeline

2002 / Foundation of a football club in Solières, which takes on the name Solières Sport and settles on a pitch at Chemin de Perwez, on the grounds of the Château Vert Institute for disabled children. Upon applying for membership of Belgium’s Football Association, Solières Sport, formed by a group of disaffected members of RFC Huy, receives registration number 9426. The club starts its life in Liège’s Provincial League 4, but manages a rapid rise through the divisions until reaching Provincial League 1 in 2012.
2013 / Runners-up in its first season in P1, Solières Sport qualifies for the promotion play-offs, in which the club eventually secures an unprecedented promotion to National Division 4. Because Solières' main pitch does not have the correct measurements for national league football, the club has to temporarily move to the synthetic pitch of Site Legrand, the youth academy ground of RFC Huy. Meanwhile, a pitch with correct measurements is being put in place on the B pitch of Complexe du Château Vert.
2014 / Abandoning the Site Legrand, Solières Sport moves its first team football back to Complexe du Château Vert – more specifically to the newly laid-out grass pitch to the south of the clubhouse.
2015 / Finishing in fourth place in National Division 4D, Solières Sport qualifies for the promotion play-offs, in which it is eliminated in R1 by RES Acrenoise (1-0).
2016 / Finishing third place in National Division 4D, with an equal number of points as champions RFC Meux and runners-up RUS Givry (and with RES Couvin-Mariembourg following just 1 point behind), Solières Sport qualifies directly for the new-to-be-formed ACFF Amateur Division 2, the new fourth tier of the Belgian league pyramid.
2017 / A synthetic surface is put in place on the pitch of Complexe du Château Vert north of the clubhouse – which had been the club’s main pitch between 2002 and 2013.
2018 / In the early months of 2018, a covered terrace is constructed alongside the main pitch (south of the clubhouse) of Complexe du Château Vert.
2021 / After seven seasons of first team football on the grass pitch south of the clubhouse at Complexe du Château Vert, Solières Sport chooses to move the home matches of its flagship team to the synthetic pitch to the north of the clubhouse – i.e. the location of the former main pitch (2002-13).
2022 / By the summer of 2022, the grass pitch and the covered stand on the southern side of the clubhouse in Solières had fallen into disrepair.
2023 / Finishing in sixteenth place in ACFF Amateur Division 2, Solières Sport descends into ACFF D3. Following the 2022-23 season, the club concludes a merger with the club it broke away from in 2002, RFC Huy, forming Royale Union Hutoise, with RFC Huy’s registration number 76 being retained. With RFC Huy having abandoned its historic Stade Communal / Avenue de la Croix Rouge three years previously, first team football moves to the synthetic pitch of Solières’ Complexe du Château Vert, while the new club’s youth academy settles at Site Legrand in Tihange, Huy, which had served as RFC Huy’s main – i.e. only – ground from 2020 onwards.

Note - Below, a compilation of photographs from two different visits: pictures 1-11 = match visit, October 2014 / pictures 12-14 = non-matchday visit, February 2019 / pictures 15-20 = non-matchday (ruin) visit, July 2022.