Extreme Football Tourism: BELGIUM: KDC Ruddervoorde (1987-) / Cercle Brugge KSV (B) (2020-2023)

Saturday, 29 October 2022

BELGIUM: KDC Ruddervoorde (1987-) / Cercle Brugge KSV (B) (2020-2023)

Sportcentrum Ridefort, Ruddervoorde (KDC Ruddervoorde, formerly B ground of Cercle Brugge KSV)

Belgium, province: West Flanders

29 X 2022 / Cercle Brugge KSV B - KFC Merelbeke 1-3 / VFV Amateur Division 2A (= BE level 4)

Timeline

1926 / Foundation of Daring Club Ruddervoorde. For the first seventeen years of its existence, the club did not join the official Belgian FA; possibly, like many of the other clubs in this part of West Flanders, DC Ruddervoorde was a member of Vlaams(ch)e Voetbalbond, a league association which was largely discredited after World War II due to its collaborationist stance.
1943 / Daring Club Ruddervoorde switches from Vlaamse Voetbalbond to membership of the offical Belgian Football Association. Upon joining, the club obtains matricule 3976. In West Flanders' Provincial Leagues, modest DC Ruddervoorde never rose to a level higher than Provincial League 3 - the second-lowest reach of the provincial football pyramid.
1955 / Acquiring the royal epithet, DC Ruddervoorde adapts its name to become Koninklijke Daring Club (KDC) Ruddervoorde.
1987 / Abandoning their previous ground, situated at the back of Brouwerij De Gomme, a local beer brewery, KDC Ruddervoorde moves into the newly built Sportcentrum Ridefort.
1990 / Having played in KDC Ruddervoorde's youth academy for four seasons, nine-year-old Thomas Buffel switches to Cercle Brugge KSV. Destined for a long professional career (1999-2019), Buffel would go on to play for Feyenoord, SBV Excelsior, Rangers FC, Cercle Brugge KSV, KRC Genk, and SV Zulte Waregem - as well as winning 35 caps for Belgium's national team.
2008 / Having spent the preceding seasons in Provincial League 4, KDC Ruddervoorde wins the promotion play-off final against derby rivals SKD Hertsberge to accede to Provincial League 3.
2020 / After dropping back into P4 in 2019 after eleven consecutive seasons of Provincial League 3 football, KDC Ruddervoorde immediately finds its way back to P3 by finishing first in Provincial League 4B in 2019-20, a season cut short by the COVID-19 lockdown. Meanwhile, in the summer of 2020, Cercle Brugge KSV relocates its reserves team's matches from Jan Breydelstation - veld 6 to KDC Ruddervoorde's Sportcomplex Ridefort. Exasperated by the lack of maintenance of Jan Breydel's main side-pitch - an old 3G badly in need of replacement - as well as the insufficient lighting, Cercle started looking for alternatives. After having been turned down by KFC Varsenare, who were unwilling to accept Cercle's reserves as groundsharers at their Gemeentelijk Sportcomplex Van Caloen - where Cercle's B team had been home for some seasons previously (±2008-12) -, Cercle successfully turned to KDC Ruddervoorde.
2022 / A selected group of reserves' teams of professional league sides in Belgium are integrated into the regular football pyramid. Based on their performance in the reserves' divisions the previous season, Cercle Brugge KSV's B team qualified for VFV Amateur Division 2, the fourth tier of Belgian football.
2023 / After one season of playing at Sportcentrum Ridefort, Cercle Brugge KSV moved its B team's home matches to Gemeentelijk Sportcomplex De Valkaart in Oostkamp.
2024 / Finishing in third place in P3B, KDC Ruddervoorde qualifies for the play-offs, in which the club successively edges past Sparta Dikkebus (0-0 A.E.T. & penalty shoot-out) and KRC Waregem B (5-3 A.E.T.) to win promotion to Provincial League 2.