BELGIUM: VV Molenkring Lichtaart (± 2011-2020) / KFC De Kempen Tielen-Lichtaart (C) (2020-)

Sportcentrum Meulenstraat - Molenkring, Lichtaart (C ground of KFC De Kempen Tielen-Lichtaart, formerly VV Molenkring Lichtaart)

Belgium, province: Antwerp = Antwerpen

July 2024 / no match visited

Timeline

• 1971 / Foundation of a recreational football club in Lichtaart, which is given the name Molenkring Lichtaart, because most of the club’s membership lived at or close to Molenstraat. A pitch is laid out for the club at Dressenstraat.
• 1974 / Molenkring Lichtaart joins a recreational league with clubs from the wider Westerlo and Geel area, the so-called Kempische Vriendenvereniging (KVV).
• 1978 / Having been a KVV member for four seasons, Molenkring Lichtaart switches to another recreational league, the KKSFB (Koninklijke Katholieke Sportfederatie België) – the precursor of the future Koninklijke Vlaamse Voetbalbond (KVV).
• 1990 / Having won one KKSFB Ereklasse title and being one of the strongest clubs in the KKSFB in the 1980s, Molenkring Lichtaart decides to make the leap to the official Belgian FA (KBVB), changing its name slightly to become Voetbalvereniging (VV) Molenkring Lichtaart and acquiring registration number 9200 upon being accepted as new member club – and being placed in Antwerp’s Provincial League 4E for the 1990-91 season.
• 1993 / Finishing in third place in Provincial League 4D, VV Molenkring Lichtaart wins promotion to Provincial League 3 following a successful round of play-offs.
• 1994 / VV Molenkring Lichtaart has the best season in its history in the ranks of the KBVB with a thirteenth place in P3D – thereby narrowly saving its skin at that level.
• 1995 / Finishing in fourteenth place in P3D, VV Molenkring Lichtaart drops back into Provincial League 4 after two seasons.
• 2007 / The other club in Lichtaart, KVV Lichtaart Sport, concludes a merger with VC Tielen, resulting in the foundation of KFC De Kempen Tielen-Lichtaart, with first team football moving to Tielen's Staf Janssensstadion, effectively leaving VV Lichtaart Sport as the only club left in the village.
• 2011 / After sixteen consecutive seasons in Provincial League 4 – and having finished bottom of the P4D table in 2010-11 – VV Molenkring Lichtaart now finishes in second place in P4E, 16 points behind champions KFC Beekhoek Sport. Qualifying for the play-offs, the club successively has the better of K Achterbroek VV (6-2 aggr.) and K Massenhoven VC (2-2 aggr., winning on away goals), thus winning promotion to Provincial League 3.
• 2012 / Finishing in fourteenth place in P3C, VV Molenkring Lichtaart drops back into Provincial League 4 after just one year – the other drop-outs being KFC Meer, FC Punt-Larum, and KFC Flandria. Also in or around 2011, the club moves away from Terrein Dressenstraat, settling at two newly laid-out pitches at the back of KFC De Kempen Tielen-Lichtaart’s youth academy ground, Sportcomplex Meulenstraat. There, Molenkring shares a clubhouse with athletics club AC Lichtaart.
• 2020 / Having spent the last years of its existence in the lower reaches of Antwerp’s Provincial League 4, VV Molenkring Lichtaart finds itself in seventeenth and last place in P4E in the 2019-20 season, which is cut short in March 2020 due to the COVID lockdown. In the summer of 2020, the club folds, ceasing all activities. Its two pitches are taken over by KFC De Kempen Tielen-Lichtaart. The fencing separating the two pitches – as well as one of two covered areas for supporters – are removed for safety reasons.

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