BELGIUM: Wallonia FC Fraipont-Nessonvaux (1934-1985) / R Wallonia FC Nessonvaux-Fraipont (1985-2010)

Terrain de la Heid de Vesdre, Nessonvaux (formerly Wallonia FC Fraipont-Nessonvaux / R Wallonia FC Nessonvaux-Fraipont)

Belgium, province: Liège = Luik

April 2019 / no match visited

Timeline

• 1906 / Foundation of Nessonvaux Football Club (FC). The club played at a ground called Terrain de l'Impéria (exact location unclear). Still running during World War I, the club must have disappeared shortly after the end of this war. 
• 1926 / Foundation a new football club in Nessonvaux, named Etoile Football Club (EFC) Nessonvaux. Upon joining Belgium's Football Association, EFC Nessonvaux obtains matricule 686.
• 1931 / In February 1931, EFC Nessonvaux's membership of Belgium's FA was suddenly withdrawn. According to a story, the club was forbidden further membership due to supporters or players having thrown a referee into the river Vesdre after an unwelcome decision on the pitch.
• 1934 / Foundation of a new, third successive football club in Nessonvaux. The name chosen is Wallonia Football Club (FC) Fraipont-Nessonvaux. Upon being admitted as members of Belgium's FA, the club receives matricule 2209. The club's pitch is the so-called Terrain de la Heid de Vesdre, situated at the back of Nessonvaux's train station. Later on, a new entrance to the ground was created at Rue Franklin Roosevelt. In the course of its 76-year-existence as an independent club, Wallonia steadily played at this same ground.
• 1942 / A first success on the pitch, as Wallonia FC's first team wins promotion to Liège's Provincial League 2.
• 1951 / In the best season in the club's history, Wallonia FC Fraipont-Nessonvaux finishes second in Provincial League 2 behind RFC Malmundaria 1904, thus narrowly missing out on promotion to Provincial League 1. In the following two decades, Wallonia alternates spells in Provincial Leagues 2 and 3.
• 1970 / A new clubhouse, with a canteen and changing rooms, is built at the southern end of the ground.
• 1976 / A lowpoint in club history, as Wallonia suffers relegation to Provincial League 4 for the first time. It takes the club five seasons to find its way back to P3.
• 1985 / One year after its 50th anniversary, Wallonia FC Fraipont-Nessonvaux becomes a Société Royale, in the process changing its name to become Royal Wallonia Football Club Nessonvaux-Fraipont (note that Nessonvaux is now mentioned before Fraipont rather than after it).
• 2001 / After having been thrown back into the bottom division of Liège's provincial leagues once again in the 1990s, the club finds its way back up with a promotion to Provincial League 3 in 1999 - and then on to Provincial League 2 in 2001.
• 2003 / Wallonia's closest neighbours, the historically more successful club R Prayon FC - with four spells in National Division 4 to look back on - suffers the humiliation of relegating to Provincial League 3, while Nessonvaux stays up in P2. For the first time in both clubs' history, Nessonvaux plays at a higher league level than Prayon.
• 2004 / After three seasons in P2, Wallonia is relegated to Provincial League 3. That same year, Mustafa Karabal - well-known in the province of Liège as a referee - takes over the chairmanship, guiding the club in its last six years.
• 2006 / A last promotion in club history as R Wallonia FC Nessonvaux-Fraipont wins the P3 promotion play-offs by successively beating RFC 1912 Raeren, JS Racour, RFC Grâce-Hollogne, and R Alliance Clavinoise SC.
• 2010 / More or less forced by Trooz's municipal council, R Wallonia FC Nessonvaux-Fraipont concludes a merger with R Prayon FC, forming Royal Football Club (RFC) de Trooz, retaining Prayon's matricule 226. Since, all football has been played at Prayon's two pitches at Rue de la Brouck-Campagne, whilst the premises in Nessonvaux were turned into a communal gardening project.

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