Extreme Football Tourism: NETHERLANDS: vv Sportclub Lochem

Sportpark De Elze, Lochem (vv Sportclub Lochem)

Netherlands, province: Guelders = Gelderland

15 VI 2022 / vv Sportclub Lochem - VC Fleringen 1-1 A.E.T. - Fleringen won penalty shoot-out (3-5) / District East, Sunday Leagues 3 & 4 - promotion-relegation play-off semi (= NL levels 8 & 9)

Timeline

1895 / Foundation of a first football club in Lochem, LFC (Lochemse Football Club) Wilhelmina. This club probably did not exist longer than a decade - and neither did the equally short-lived successors named Excelsior (1905), Zwaluwen, Oranjeboom (1909), Prinses Juliana (1909), Volharding (1914), and Vitesse.
1918 / Foundation of yet another new football club in Lochem, vv Blauw-Wit. vv Blauw-Wit initially plays its football at a ground situated at the back of Café Vonkerman (Barchemseweg).
± 1920 / vv Blauw-Wit changes its name to become LVV (Lochemse Voetbalvereeniging) Lochem to comply with the Netherlands' Football Association's rules stating that no two affiliated clubs can bear the same name - and there were already several older clubs called Blauw-Wit (most notably ASV Blauw-Wit in Amsterdam). Even so, the official LVV Lochem never caught on, as locals continued to refer to the club simply as 'Blauw-Wit'. Around the same time as the name change, the club moves from Café Vonkerman to Kerkdijkje (naer what is now known as Hanzeweg).
1923 / Another football club is founded in Lochem, Excelsior.
1924 / Probably for the same reason as Blauw-Wit several years previously, Excelsior changes its name to become Koolhazen.
1929 / LVV Lochem moves from Kerkdijkje to a new ground at Larenseweg, referred to colloquially as 'Villa Karpersmaat'.
1932 / Foundation of a third club in Lochem, Sparta Lochem. Sparta Lochem settles at Sportterrein Tusseler (near Theeschenkerij ADBO, a local hotel).
1933 / Sparta Lochem folds, ceasing all activities.
1934 / LVV Lochem moves from Villa Karpersmaat to Koedijk - a ground situated on the northern side of this street.
1941 / Probably at the behest of German occupation authorities, LVV Lochem moves back from Koedijk to Villa Karpersmaat.
1944 / Koolhazen concludes a merger with vv Dochteren (founded in 1930 and not to be confused with vv Klein Dochteren, a new club founded in 1960), resulting in the foundation of KDC (Koolhazen Dochteren Combinatie), with all activities moving to Koolhazen's ground, Sportpark De Enk, situated at Barchemseweg (behind Café Vonkerman). vv Dochteren's ground at Café De Groot (Rijksweg Lochem-Zutphen) is abandoned. In the following years, KDC alternates spells in (Sunday) League 4 and GVB League 1.
1951 / LVV Lochem moves away from Villa Karpersmaat yet again, this time settling down at a new ground also situated at Koedijk, but this one on the southern side of the street.
1962 / KDC and LVV Lochem conclude a merger, becoming Voetbalvereniging (vv) Sportclub Lochem - often referred to in writing as Spcl. Lochem or SP Lochem. For the time being, first team football is played at KDC's Sportpark De Enk, with Blauw-Wit's Sportpark Koedijk II - which eventually had to make way for housing - remaining in use for seven more years for lower team football and training purposes.
1967 / The first success of the new merger club, as vv Sportclub Lochem wins the title in Sunday League 4C, thus acceding to Sunday League 3 - a level at which LVV Lochem had last acted in 1950.
1969 / SP Lochem moves to a newly built ground at Koedijk, Sportpark Het Hazenleger. The two grounds in use up until that time are both abandoned. Also in 1969, vv Sportclub Lochem wins promotion to Sunday League 2 - at the time the second-highest non-league level in the Netherlands.
1972 / After three seasons in Sunday League 2, Spcl. Lochem drops back into Sunday League 3. In spite of being one of the biggest clubs in the region in terms of membership, Lochem never managed to reach the upper tiers of non-league football with their first team, with this three year stay in Sunday League 2 remaining the highlight in the club's history. In the following three decades, the club alternates spells in Sunday Leagues 3 and 4.
1997 / As Sportpark Het Hazenleger has to make way for housing, a new ground - yet again situated at Koedijk - is constructed, the current Sportpark De Elze, inaugurated in 1997.
2001 / In what can be described as the nadir in club history, vv Sportclub Lochem is relegated to Sunday League 5 for the first time. It takes the club three years to find its way back to League 4.
2015 / Winning the L4 promotion play-offs, vv Sportclub Lochem returns to Sunday League 3 after a twenty-year absence.
2022 / As a result of its defeat (after a penalty shoot-out) against VC Fleringen in the match I attended at Sportpark De Elze (photos 4-20 below), vv Sportclub Lochem is condemned to relegation to Sunday League 4.
2023 / Finishing 3rd in District East's Sunday League 4C behind vv Reünie and VIOS-B, vv Sportclub Lochem qualifies for the promotion play-offs, in which it successively defeats vv Rood Zwart (4-1), SC Millingen (0-4), and L3 club vv Gendringen (2-5) to accede to L3 after a one-year absence.

Note 1: Thanks due to SP Lochem's club historian Dick Lammertink for providing me with the bulk of the information given above.

Note 2: Below, a compilation of photos of two different visits: pictures 1-3 = non-matchday visit, July 2010 / pictures 4-20 = match visit, June 2022.