Extreme Football Tourism: NETHERLANDS: SV Ratti (±1976-2018) / SSA Ratti-Sociï (A & B) (2018-)

Sunday 23 April 2023

NETHERLANDS: SV Ratti (±1976-2018) / SSA Ratti-Sociï (A & B) (2018-)

Sportpark De Eik, Kranenburg (SSA Ratti-Sociï, formerly SV Ratti)

Netherlands, province: Guelders = Gelderland

23 IV 2023 / SSA Ratti-Sociï - MEC 1-1 / District East, Sunday League 5B (= NL level 10)

Timeline

1929 / A football club from the village of Kranenburg, named 'Volharding', takes part in a tournament organised by V&AV Pax in Hengelo (Gld.). It is unclear when Volharding, who probably competed in the Roman-Catholic football leagues of ICVB, organised by Utrecht's diocesan authorities.
±1935 / Sometime in the mid-1930s, Volharding must have folded, ceasing all activities.
1945 / In the wake of World War II and German oppression, a new football club is founded in Kranenburg. The adopted name is Rooms-Katholieke Sportvereniging (RKSV) Avanti. Co-founder and first chairman is Bernhard Schoenaker. The club's pitch is a makeshift affair, a meadow situated at Ruurloseweg without facilities; bereft of dressing rooms, the players have to change clothes at Café Schoenaker before heading for the pitch on the fringes of the village. When applying for membership of the official Netherlands' FA, the club is refused due to a club in Twello already having taken the name Avanti. Subsequently, the club files a list of three alternatives: RKSV Semper-Avanti, RKSV Kranenburg, and RKSV Ratti. Rejecting the first two names, Dutch FA authorities send the club a letter stating that their membership is accepted under the name of RKSV Ratti - Achille Ratti being the civilian name of sport-minded Pope Pius XI, who passed away in 1939 after a seventeen-year pontificate. The idea for the name came from Olivier Joosten, chaplain of the local monastery who doubled as the new football club's spiritual advisor - an obligatory feature any Roman-Catholic club at the time. RKSV Ratti is one of two clubs in the Netherlands named after a pope - the other being RKSV Sarto in Tilburg (named after Giuseppe Sarto, Pope St Pius X). RKSV Ratti is placed the third division of GVB or Gelderse Voetbalbond, the local league system in Guelders (Gelderland) below Sunday League 4.
1955 / After a decade of alternating spells in GVB's second and third divisions, RKSV Ratti wins promotion to GVB Division 1 for the first time. In its first season at this level, the club finishes in a respectable third place.
1967 / Abandoning its original premises, RKSV Ratti moves into a ground at Eikenlaan consisting of one pitch, put at the club's disposal by Kranenburg's local Roman-Catholic church. As a sign of the times, that same year, Ratti forms a Saturday league branch and officially changes its statutes to become a neutral - rather than a Roman-Catholic - club; shedding the 'RK' part of its name, the club is henceforth called SV Ratti.
± 1976 / RKSV Ratti moves to the northern side of Eikenlaan, inaugurating its current park.
1985 / At SV Ratti's 40th anniversary, a gala match against De Graafschap is played in Kranenburg. Ratti sensationally takes the lead after twenty seconds of play, but loses the match 1-16.
1986 / A school is built on Ratti's pitch. Around this same time, the current clubhouse "De Eik" is inaugurated.
1990 / Inauguration of the current clubhouse, replacing its wooden predecessor.
1991 / The club leaves the Sunday pyramid, instead fielding a first team in the Saturday leagues.
1992 / SV Ratti's first team wins promotion to GVB's Saturday Division 1.
1995 / Abandoning Saturday league football, the club's first team returns to the Sunday leagues.
1996 / As Gelderse Voetbalbond's two divisions are reorganised as Sunday Leagues 5 and 6 - until that time, teams relegated from Sunday League 4 dropped into GVB's League 1 -, SV Ratti's first team is placed in District East's Sunday League 6.
2013 / With Sunday League 6 being abolished due to the dwindling number of football clubs in the region, SV Ratti accedes to Sunday League 5 without winning promotion on the pitch.
2014 / Having finished dead-last in Sunday League 5 with just 9 points and a goal difference of -78, SV Ratti withdraws from first team football, sticking to fielding just reserves' and youth teams.
2018 / The decision is taken to merge the teams of SV Ratti and SV Sociï from nearby Wichmond. The combined clubs fielded a first team in Sunday League 5 under the name SSA (Samenwerking Seniorenafdeling) Ratti-Sociï. Home matches are alternately played at Sociï's Sportpark Lankhorst and Sportpark De Eik in Kranenburg.

Note - Below, a compilation of photos of two different visits: picture 1 = non-matchday visit, October 2022 / pictures 2-18 = match visit, April 2023.