Extreme Football Tourism: BELGIUM: RC Tournaisien (1919-1923) / RRC Tournaisien (B) (1923-1982) / SC Tournai Vert Bocage (1991-2006) / RUS Tournai matr. 9554 (B) (2018-2019)

Sunday 17 April 2022

BELGIUM: RC Tournaisien (1919-1923) / RRC Tournaisien (B) (1923-1982) / SC Tournai Vert Bocage (1991-2006) / RUS Tournai matr. 9554 (B) (2018-2019)

Stade Prior, Tournay = Tournai = Doornik (formerly RC Tournaisien / youth academy of (R)RC Tournaisien / ES Moumel / SC Tournai Vert Bocage / training ground of RUS Tournai matr. 9554)

Belgium, province: Hainaut = Henegouwen

April 2022 / no match visited

Timeline

1908 / Foundation of Racing Club (RC) Tournaisien, the club of Tournay's liberal, anti-clerical establishment. The club's first chairman, Jean Dubus de Warnaffe, finds his team a pitch at Chaussée de Douai.
1909 / RC Tournaisien joins Belgium's Football Association.
1911 / After three years at Chaussée de Douai, RC Tournaisien moves to a new pitch at Rue de la Culture.
1919 / Due to its ground at Rue de la Culture having been ravished in World War I, RC Tournaisien moves into a newly laid pitch at Avenue des Sorbiers, colloquially known as 'Le Prior'.
1923 / Having played its football at Stade (Le) Prior for four seasons, RC Tournaisien moves on to a newly built stadium, Stade de la Drève de Maire (capacity: c. 9,000) - due to remain the club's home until its merger with RUS Tournaisienne in 2002 to become RFC Tournai. Le Prior remains in use as youth academy of RC Tournaisien (from 1933 onwards: RRC Tournaisien).
1945 / Tournai Hockey Club moves into Stade Prior, groundsharing with RRC Tournaisien's youth academy. The stay of the field hockey club is no more than ephemeral, though, and cannot have lasted much longer than two years at most.
1982 / RRC Tournaisien's new youth academy, consisting of two pitches, is inaugurated at Rue de Breuze in Kain-la-Tombe, on Tournay's northern outskirts. The club abandons Stade Le Prior, which must have remained in subsequent years - possibly by RUS Tournaisienne's youth academy, probably also by recreational football teams.
1991 / Entente Sportive (ES) Moumel (matricule 8806, founded in 1979), a club representing two hamlets just north of Tournay, Melles and Mourcourt - 'Moumel' being an acronym of the two villages' names - changes its name to become Sporting Club (SC) Tournai Vert Bocage, moving into Stade Prior.
2006 / Having played in Provincial League 4, the bottom league of Hainaut's provincial league system, all its existence, SC Tournai Vert Bocage folds, ceasing all activities. It is unclear if the ground remained in use for recreational football for some more years - given that Tournay's Corporatist League continued its activities until 2010 -, or if it was abandoned straightaway in 2006.
2018 / RUS Tournai (matricule 9554), phoenix club of the former RUS Tournaisienne (matricule 26), takes over Stade Prior, using the ground for training purposes until they abandoned the premises due to ongoing vandalism going on in and outside the clubhouse. There are advanced plans to completely renovate the ground with a view of moving the club's first team football here, but due to a conflict between RUS Tournai's club president, who had already paid for an architect to design a new clubhouse, and part of the other board members, the project is stalled - and for good when the chairman left the club in 2019. Due to ongoing vandalisation going on in and outside the clubhouse, RUS Tournai abandons Stade Prior in the early months of 2019.
2022 / What remains of Stade Prior's clubhouse is knocked down in the early months of 2022. Meanwhile, the erstwhile football pitch has been turned into a public park.