BELGIUM: JS Merdorp (1971-2023) / RFC Wallonia Thisnes (B) (2023-2024) / RFC Wallonia Thisnes (2024-2025) / RFC Wallonia Hannut (B) (2025-)

Stade Communal Romain Froment, Merdorp (RFC Wallonia Thisnes, formerly JS Merdorp / training ground of RFC Wallonia Thisnes)

Belgium, province: Liège = Luik

12 IV 2025 / RFC Wallonia Thisnes - Patro Lensois 4-1 / Liège, Provincial League 2A (= BE level 7)

Timeline

• 1971 / Foundation of a football club in Merdorp, a village in the far western corner of the Province of Liège; the club, which is given the name Jeunesse Sportive (JS) Merdorp, acquires registration number 7700 upon being accepted as new members of the Belgian Football Association (URBSFA / KBVB). Playing its football at Stade Romain Froment (named after the mayor of Merdorp at the time of the club's foundation) from the year of foundation onwards, JS Merdorp never managed to climb out of the lowest reaches of Liège’s provincial divisions – possibly never even managing promotion from Provincial League 4 to Provincial League 3 (although no exact data are available concerning the period until 2008).
• 2009 / In the oldest season of Liège’s provincial divisions featuring in our archives, JS Merdorp finishes rock bottom in Provincial League 4A with an abysmal goal difference of -133. The club goes on to finish bottom of the table in that same division in three of the following six seasons.
• 2016 / With the club’s results going from bad to worse, JS Merdorp suffers defeat in all of its 28 matches in the 2015-16 season in Liège’s Provincial League 4A, finishing the season with a goal difference of -173 – only improving on that result slightly in 2017 (-147).
• 2022 / In its best season by far in at least fifteen years, JS Merdorp finishes in eighth place in Liège’s Provincial League 4A. However, after a relatively anonymous existence in the lower reaches of Liège's Provincial League system, JS Merdorp is forced out of the Stade Romain Froment by Hannut’s town council – the reason given is the lack of maintenance at the ground on the part of the club itself. In the course of the summer, however, permission was given for a re-start with a new board – and a reserves’ team playing at the ground in Merdorp for the 2022-23 season. The club’s first team was withdrawn from Provincial League 4A before the start of the season.
• 2023 / JS Merdorp plans a return in Provincial League 4 with a first team, but does not even manage to start the season and withdraws yet again. The club now folds, ceasing all activities once and for all. At the instigation of Hannut’s municipal authorities, the ground in Merdorp is taken over by neighbour club RFC Wallonia Thisnes for training purposes.
• 2024 / At the instigation of Hannut’s municipal authorities, RFC Wallonia Thisnes – meanwhile playing its football in Provincial League 2 after a steady rise through the ranks of Liège’s provincial divisions – moves its first team football to Stade Romain Froment, with the ground in Thisnes, the Stade Pol Mottet-Paul Haumont, being abandoned once and for all. The club receives a budget from Hannut’s town council to upgrade the ground in Merdorp, which is even adorned with a small covered stand. The complex is officially renamed Stade TWB in a sponsorship deal. 
• 2025 / Finishing in fourth place in Liège's Provincial League 2A, RFC Wallonia Thisnes qualifies for the promotion play-offs, in which the club survives the first two rounds against RJS Fizoise (1-1 & penalty shoot-out) and RCS Verlaine B (2-1), thus qualifying for the final round, a three-way play-off against CS Juprelle and FC Warsage. Drawing its away tie against the latter (0-0) and losing its home tie against the former (0-1). With CS Juprelle going on to win the competition and the ticket to Provincial League 1, RFC Wallonia Thisnes misses out on promotion. It has to be pointed out that the club played its home ties in the play-offs in Hannut's Stade Alfred Ducarme rather than in Merdorp - not completely unexpected given that, by that time, the club had concluded a merger deal with RFC Hannutois, resulting in the foundation of RFC Wallonia Hannut, with Hannutois’ registration number 215 being retained (and Thisnes’ number 3307 being erased from the Belgian FA’s official lists). First team football moves to Hannut’s Stade Alfred Ducarme, with the ground in Merdorp being retained for lower team football and training sessions.

Note - Below, a compilation of photos of two different visits: pictures 1-9 = non-matchday visit, July 2022 / pictures 10-26 = match visit, April 2025.

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