Belgium, province: Liège = Luik
November 2022 / no match visited
Timeline
- 1961 / Foundation of Cercle Sportif (CS) Fragnée, a club joining ALFA, a football association of recreational ('amateur') clubs from the city of Liège and its surroundings. It is unclear if CS Fragnée played its football at Rue de l'Hippodrome in Sclessin (Liège) from the outset - neither if this club was the first to make use of these facilities. Moreover, it is as yet unclear when this pitch - or the neighbouring pitch at Rue des Marecages, sometimes referred to as Plaine Halkin or Le Jenatzy - was laid out.
- 198? / Probably some time in the early 1980s, AS (Association Sportive) Emul Sclessin started a groundshare with CS Fragnée at Terrain de l'Hippodrome. This club, named after Sclessin's community centre and library, 'Emul' (acronym of 'Emulation'), was founded some time in the early 1960s under the leadership of René Laforge, who was destined to stay at its helm throughout virtually its entire 50-year existence - though the club's first president was Janos Steinmetz. Like Fragnée, AS Emul Sclessin played its football in ALFA. The club started its existence at Rue Côte d'Or before being ejected from that ground, which had to make way for housing. After a short groundshare at CS Sart-Tilman, the club moved on to Rue de l'Hippodrome. According to local sources, the clubhouse at the west-side of the pitch (cp. photo 3 below) was constructed by Emul's president Laforge in collaboration with his Fragnée counterpart, Bertrand Robert (anyone able to shed more light on the history of this pitch as well as the history of AS Emul Sclessin and (R)CS Fragnée is more than welcome to get in touch with me).
- 2011 / Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, CS Fragnée becomes a Société Royale - adapting its name to become Royal Cercle Sportif (RCS) Fragnée.
- 2013 / Some time in the years 2000-09, another ALFA club by the name of FC Hellas settled at Rue de l'Hippodrome, groundsharing with RCS Fragnée and AS Emul Sclessin. FC Hellas probably ceased all activities in 2013, although no absolute certainty about this year has been found as yet. Probably, this club was refounded as FC Ellas Vottem, henceforth playing its football at various grounds in Vottem - first at RRC Vottem's Stade Michel Ansenne, later at Rue Croix Jouette.
- 2014 / After having played in ALFA's league system for around fifty years, AS Emul Sclessin applies for membership of the official Belgian Football Association, being accepted as members under the adapted name AS Emul Liège (matricule 9611). Probably in 2014 - possibly one year later - Emul's groundsharing partners RCS Fragnée abandoned Terrain de l'Hippodrome to play at Rue des 18 Bonniers in Grâce Hollogne (eventually merging with Entente Fexhe-et-Slins in 2016).
- 2016 / After two anonymous seasons in Liège's Provincial League 4, AS Emul Liège withdraws its FA membership, folding altogether due to a lack of volunteers and the risk of incurring debts; in the end, the club was able to avoid doing so by selling its clubhouse to Liège's municipal authorities. The pitch as well as the clubhouse are now put at the disposal of Association Sportive Culturelle (ASC) Marocaine, an ALFA club which had become the main user of the neighbouring pitch (Plaine Halkin) at Rue des Marecages. In effect, the two pitches have been part of one and the same sports park since - with ASC Marocaine mainly using the Terrain de l'Hippodrome, whereas pitch 2 (Rue des Marecages) is used for matches by several other ALFA clubs.
- 2021 / The condition of the pitch of Terrain de l'Hippodrome having markedly deteriorated, ASC Marocaine moves all its activities to pitch 2 (Plaine Halkin). Promises by Liège's municipal authorities to render pitch 1 usable for sports activities have so far remained unfulfilled.
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All photos: (c) W.B. Tukker / www.extremefootballtourism.blogspot.com. Publication of any of these images only after permission of author
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