Extreme Football Tourism: BELGIUM: SC Russeignies (1980-1998) / SC Mont-de-l'Enclus (1998-2003) / FC Mont-de-l'Enclus (2007-2018) / Entente Velaines Enclusienne (B) (2018-)

Stade Communal - Rue de la Station, Amougies = Amengijs (B ground of Entente Velaines Enclusienne, formerly SC Russeignies / SC Mont-de-l'Enclus / FC Mont-de-l'Enclus)

Belgium, province: Hainaut = Henegouwen

21 VII 2025 / Entente Velaines Enclusienne - RFC Molenbaix 1-2 / Pre-season friendly

Timeline

1941 / Foundation of a football club in the bilingual village Amengijs / Amougies in the far south of the Province of East Flanders, with the club taking on the name Association Sportive (AS) Amougies and joining Belgium’s Football Association with registration number 3135. It is unclear where the pitch of AS Amougies was situated. The club is placed in a regional competition, as regular league football has been suspended following the German occupation of Belgium in 1940.
1944 / As regular league football is resumed, AS Amougies is placed in East Flanders’ Provincial League 3E.
1945 / In spite of AS Amougies clinching the title in East Flanders’ Provincial League 3E, the club does not win promotion to Provincial League 2. The reasons behind this are unclear – either the club itself preferring to stay in P3 or no promotions and relegations being accorded in the first post-war season.
1947 / AS Amougies withdraws from East Flanders’ Provincial League 3 after five seasons as a competitive club.
1948 / After one year of inactivity, AS Amougies officially folds, with registration number 3135 being erased from the Belgian FA’s official lists.
1963 / As the language border between Flanders and Wallonia is drawn anew, the meanwhile almost exclusively French-speaking Amougies (Amengijs), as well as the nearby village of Russeignies (Rozenaken), are transferred from the Province of East Flanders to the Province of Hainaut.
1974 / Foundation of a football club in Russeignies, which takes on the name Sporting Club (SC) Russeignies, joining Belgium’s Football Association with registration number 8172. The club starts its life in Hainaut’s Provincial League 4, playing its home matches on a pitch at the back of a farm at Chaussée de Renaix, to the east of Russeignies proper.
1980 / Moving away from its ground out Chaussée de Renaix after six years, SC Russeignies settles on a newly laid-out pitch at Rue de la Station in Amougies – in fact a park created by the municipal authorities of the community of Mont-de-l’Enclus, a merger of several villages brought about in 1977. This new Stade Communal is inaugurated with a gala match between KSV Waregem and RRC Tournaisien in August 1980, with KSV Waregem’s squad including the brothers Luc and Marc Millecamps, who had both just returned from the 1980 European Championships in Italy as part of the Belgian team which had won the silver medal at that tournament. Making a virtue of a necessity, the designers of the new ground had turned the old train station building at Rue de la Station, which had fallen into disuse following the closure of the railway line between Courtray (Kortrijk, Courtrai) and Ronse (Renaix) in 1959, into the clubhouse of the Stade Communal, with a set of dressing rooms being added to the set-up as well – both on the western end of the pitch. In fact, the station building as well as the parking lot were owned by SC Russeignies main (only) sponsor, Meubles Cousaert, a furniture factory based in Amougies; another factor which may have brought about the move of the club away from its origins in Russeignies.
1981 / As the underground of the pitch of the new Stade Communal in Amougies proves particularly poor, SC Russeignies plays the latter stages of the 1980-81 season at its old ground in Russeignies, with the club returning to Amougies once and for all following a refurbishment of the pitch in the summer of 1981.
1983 / SC Russeignies finishes as runners-up in Hainaut’s Provincial League 4B, 4 points behind champions AS Obigies.
1984 / Champions in Hainaut’s Provincial League 4B, 2 points ahead of closest rivals AC Anvaing, SC Russeignies wins promotion to Provincial League 3 for the first time.
1986 / Champions in Hainaut’s Provincial League 3A, 1 point ahead of runners-up JS Athoise, SC Russeignies wins promotion to Provincial League 2 for the first time.
1988 / Finishing bottom of the table in Hainaut’s Provincial League 2A, SC Russeignies drops back into Provincial League 3 along with the club in second-last place, Velvain Sport.
1991 / Champions in Hainaut’s Provincial League 3A, 2 points ahead of closest followers FC Résidence Lamain, SC Russeignies wins promotion to Provincial League 2.
1998 / SC Russeignies changes its name to become Sporting Club (SC) Mont-de-l’Enclus.
2000 / SC Mont-de-l’Enclus finishes as runners-up in Hainaut’s Provincial League 2A, 1 point behind champions RUS Herseautoise.
2001 / SC Mont-de-l’Enclus finishes as runners-up in Hainaut’s Provincial League 2A for the second year running, 14 points behind runaway champions RRC Péruwelz.
2002 / SC Mont-de-l’Enclus finishes as runners-up in Hainaut’s Provincial League 2A for the third year running, 10 points behind runaway champions RUS Lessines-Ollignies.
2003 / In its last season, SC Mont-de-l’Enclus finishes in third place in Hainaut’s Provincial League 2A behind champions RUS Tertre-Hautrage and runners-up RUS Herseautoise. With Meubles Cousaert, who had invested huge sums in one botched attempt to accede to Provincial League 1 after the other in recent years, withdrawing its sponsorship of the club after nearly forty years, SC Mont-de-l’Enclus is doomed to disappear, withdrawing its team from league football and ceasing all activities. Registration number 8172 is erased from the Belgian FA’s official lists.
2007 / After four years of the Stade Communal in Amougies having remained unused, a new club sees the daylight in the village, FC Mont-de-l’Enclus, which joins Belgium’s Football Association with registration number 9500, starting its life in Hainaut’s Provincial League 4. Municipal authorities have helped the club on its way by renovating the old clubhouse and dressing rooms at the western end of the pitch. The inauguration of the refurbished ground takes place on August 15th, 2007.
2013 / Finishing in fourth place in Hainaut’s Provincial League 4B, FC Mont-de-l’Enclus qualifies for the promotion play-offs, in which the club knocks out Inter Barry in R1 (1-3), only to suffer elimination in R2 at the hands of RUS Flobecquoise B (4-2).
2014 / Champions in Hainaut’s Provincial League 4B, 1 point ahead of closest rivals JS Wez-Guignies, FC Mont-de-l’Enclus wins promotion to Provincial League 3 for the first (and only) time.
2016 / Finishing in third-last place in Hainaut’s Provincial League 3A, FC Mont-de-l’Enclus has to play a relegation play-off against the no. 14 in P3C, RC Gouy. Going on to win the encounter (1-2), the club manages to stay up in Provincial League 3.
2018 / In its last season as an independent club, FC Mont-de-l’Enclus finishes in twelfth place in Hainaut’s Provincial League 3A, thereby avoiding relegation. Following the 2017-18 season, the club concludes a merger with local rivals JES Velaines, a club founded in 1969, which had joined the Belgian FA in 1975. At the time of the merger, JES Velaines played in P4, one division below FC Mont-de-l’Enclus. The result of the merger is the creation of Entente Velaines Enclusienne, which retains Velaines’ registration number 8282, with the club’s main team continuing its life in Provincial League 3 – not in Amougies, but at Velaines' Stade Philippe De Harveng, and with a B team being created, which starts its life in Provincial League 4 and plays its home matches in Amougies’ Stade Communal at Rue de la Station.
2019 / At the behest of municipal authorities of Mont-de-l’Enclus, a new clubhouse with dressing rooms and a panoramic canteen are constructed on the northern touchline of the Stade Communal in Amougies. Following the completion of the building works, the old clubhouse (the former train station) and dressing rooms at the western end of the pitch are abandoned. As a result, the entrance of the ground officially moves from Rue de la Station to Rue des Marais.

Note – Thanks to Paul-Henri Vandenhove, Thierry Castel, Xavier Pirotte, and Bernard Pecquereau for their help in bringing together the historical information for the article above.