BELGIUM: Eendracht Mazenzele Opwijk (B) (2016-2023) / Eendracht Mazenzele-Opwijk (C) (2023-2026) / VK De Sjoeters (B) (2016-) / Jong FC Opwijk (2026-)

Terrein Molenkouter Noord, Opwijk (B/C ground of Eendracht Mazenzele Opwijk & VK De Sjoeters)

Belgium, province: Flemish Brabant

1 XI 2018 / Eendracht Mazenzele Opwijk B - KFC Meise B 2-2 / Brabant, VFV Provincial League 4E (= BE level 9)

Timeline

• 1981 / Foundation of a recreational team in Opwijk, which is given the name VK De Sjoeters. In the previous three years, the team already played as a sub-branch of folk dance group VVKB Heiveld. In the first four years of its existence, VK De Sjoeters does not join any league, playing friendly matches against other recreational teams in the wider region instead. Not disposing of its own ground, the club groundshares at FC Mansteen (exact location unknown).
• 1982 / Abandoning FC Mansteen's ground, VK De Sjoeters finds a new home as groundsharers at SKO Merchtem - this recreational club's ground being situated at Sleeuwagen (possibly the pitch later taken over by FC Cristalboys).
• 1983 / VK De Sjoeters inaugurates its own pitch, Terrein Molenkouter, situated at Steenweg op Vilvoorde in Opwijk.
• 1985 / After four years of just playing friendlies, VK De Sjoeters joins Algemene Vereniging van Vriendenclubs (AVVV, later acquiring the royal epithet and continuing its existence as KAVVV), an association of recreational football clubs in Flemish Brabant and East-Flanders.
• 2011 / VK De Sjoeters starts a branch for ladies' football.
• 2014 / VK De Sjoeters ladies' team joins Belgium's FA under the name VK Sjoeters Opwijk, obtaining matricule 9621 upon being accepted as new members.
• 2015 / Opwijk's main football club, KSK Sint-Paulus Opwijk, folds, one year after having been constrained to cease its activities due to financial problems. Not long after, this club's historic ground at Ringlaan, which saw two spells of national league football, is demolished. KSK Opwijk's youth academy having been taken over by VC Eendracht Mazenzele in 2014 - on which occasion this club changed its name to become Eendracht Mazenzele Opwijk ("EMO") -, Opwijk's municipal authorities take the decision to create a synthetic pitch at the northern end of VK De Sjoeters' pitch at Steenweg op Vilvoorde in the fall of 2015. Upon completion, this new pitch is taken in use by EMO's youth academy as well as by VK De Sjoeters.
• 2017 / Ladies' football club VK Sjoeters Opwijk is absorbed into Eendracht Mazenzele Opwijk.
• 2018 / Eendracht Mazenzele Opwijk, which had hitherto played its first team football at VCE Mazenzele's ground at Vossestraat, moves the bulk of its activities to the newly laid-out Complex Tesseskouter in Opwijk and its synthetic side-pitch, which had been laid out one year previously, in 2017, next to the ground of recreational club VK Eeksken at Klaarstraat.
• 2023 / The B team of Eendracht Mazenzele Opwijk sees its home matches moved from Terrein Molenkouter to Campus Tesseskouter terr. 2.
• 2026 / A new football club sees the daylight in Opwijk, Jong FC Opwijk (registration number 9854), which settles at Terrein Molenkouter. The last training sessions of Eendracht Mazenzele Opwijk which were still held at Molenkouter now move to Campus Tesseskouter as well.

 All photos: (c) W.B. Tukker / www.extremefootballtourism.blogspot.com. Publication of any of these images only after permission of author