Extreme Football Tourism: NETHERLANDS: DVV (Voor-Beltrum) (1968-2000, 2002-2008) / VIOS B. (B) (2008-)

Sunday 2 October 2022

NETHERLANDS: DVV (Voor-Beltrum) (1968-2000, 2002-2008) / VIOS B. (B) (2008-)

Halfwegdome, Voor-Beltrum (B ground of VIOS B., formerly DVV = De Vrolijke Verliezers)

Netherlands, province: Guelders = Gelderland

2 X 2022 / VIOS B. Reserves-6 - vv Holten Reserves-5 5-9 / District East, Sunday Reserves' League 6 - group 15

Timeline

1968 / After an improvised football match between regulars of Café Halfweg and Café Overkamp on a pasture behind Café Halfweg in Voor-Beltrum - a hamlet halfway between Groenlo and Beltrum -, the decision is taken to form a football club in Voor-Beltrum. As the match against Café Overkamp was lost, the name chosen was DVV, an acronym for De Vrolijke Verliezers (literally in English: The Merry Losers) - not to be confused with vv DVV in Duiven and DVV in Delft. The club never joined the official Netherlands' Football Association, instead playing recreational football - usually referred to in the Netherlands as 'wild football' - against other café teams from the wider surroundings, including the imaginatively named Losse Flodders, FC De Kemper, and De Keet; and even against teams from across the border in West Germany (Bocholt, Blau-Weiss Vreden). At a point, a local league saw the daylight, the so-called Zilveren Bal-toernooi, in which DVV was one of the regular competitors. Progressively, DVV becomes the focal point of social life in Voor-Beltrum - with volleyball and curling matches being organised as well as recurring village festivals.
1973 / The first edition of DVV's club magazine, 'DVV Proätjes', sees the daylight. The magazine is destined to have a 34-year uninterrupted existence.
2000 / As Café Halfweg is sold to a new ownership who are not keen to sustain a football club, DVV is forced to apply for a groundsharing agreement with SV Grolse Boys. Meanwhile, Terrein Halfweg is used as a horse meadow.
2002 / After two years of groundsharing with SV Grolse Boys at Sportpark 't Wilgenpark in Groenlo, DVV returns to Terrein Halfweg; to celebrate the occasion, the ground is rechristened Halfwegdome - a playful allusion to SBV Vitesse's Gelredome in Arnhem.
2008 / Unlike the situation in Luxembourg and Belgium, where recreational football is still very much alive, the pockets in the Netherlands where 'wild football' was played were getting ever smaller and fewer in the 1980s and 1990s. Bereft of opponents in the Zilveren Bal-toernooi, DVV takes the radical decision of applying to be absorbed by regular Netherlands' FA club VIOS B. from nearby Beltrum. Henceforth, DVV's only team are competing as one of VIOS' reserves teams - with matches still being played at Halfwegdome. To be allowed to play regular FA football at Voor-Beltrum, the pitch has to be widened considerably.
2011 / DVV's footballers and their Sunday morning adventures on the pitch are portrayed in tongue-in-cheek fashion by journalist Michel van Egmond in the Netherlands' most widely read football magazine, Voetbal International.
2013 / For the first time in club history, DVV (in the guise of VIOS B.'s Reserves) win a championship title, gaining promotion to District East's Sunday Reserves' League 6.
2018 / A party is thrown at Café Halfweg - meanwhile owned by the club itself - to celebrate DVV's fiftieth anniversary.
2020 / As SV Grolse Boys folds, ceasing all activities, the floodlights as well as the dug-outs of its Sportpark 't Wilgenpark are taken over by DVV (VIOS B. Reserves) and re-erected at Halfwegdome.

Note: Below, a compilation of photos of two different visits: pictures 1 & 8-22 = match visit, October 2022 / pictures 2-7 = non-matchday visit, June 2018.