Not far from the famous Lion of Waterloo, just outside of Brussels, there's a team playing the national divisions with a rather complicated history. Several mergers throughout the years have led to the existence of Tempo Overijse and they are now peacefully playing in their charming Begijnhofstadion.
1932 - Football Club Overijssche is being created and a year later they joined the Belgian FA. As by coincident they receive matricule number 1933 while joining the FA in 1933. The next years they mainly played in the regional leagues, but they didn't seem convinced by the Belgian FA. This led to a break up in 1939 after which they joined the Flemish FA for a number of years.
1941 - Football Club Overijssche rejoins the Belgian FA. "We haven't been inactive, let's be frank, we have played three years in the Flemish FA", is what they mentioned on their application. Sadly enough this also meant according to the rules applied back then they received a new matricule number; 3028. Again they started off in the regional leagues and it would take until 1965 when they managed to reach the national leagues for the very first time. They didn't even perform that bad as they managed to stay there for nine years. That's when they relegated back to the regional leagues. Next to FC Overijssche another team joined the Belgian FA after their creation the same year. Football Club Maleizen was founded in the neighbouring village Maleizen, but only seven years later they stopped all activities. A seed was planted however.
1972 - While FC Overijssche was ruling fourth division, another neighbouring village saw the creation of Voetbalklub Tombeek that year. Just like FC Maleizen they wouldn't exist for very long because in 1976 they already ceased to exist. But again a seed was planted. In 1978 Eendracht Abstraat Tombeek started playing and the old VK Tombeek was re-founded in 1980 as Vriendenkring Tombeek. The other planted seed sprouted in 1985 when Football Club Maleizen was re-founded as well.
1986 - Ok, we have all teams needed for the rest of our story. The big merger story can begin. Only a year after FC Maleizen started a new beginning a first merger already happened. Eendracht Abstraat Tombeek and the new VK Tombeek joined forces and became Vriendenkring Eendracht Tombeek. Everything still being played on a regional level. Even FC Overijssche, because apart from one year in fourth division in 1985 they too had to play the regional leagues. The next merger happened in 1991 when VE Tombeek and FC Maleizen became Voetbalkring Eendracht Maleizen-Tombeek. The same year FC Overijssche became a royal team and changed their name into KFC Overijse.
1998 - Still it wasn't over as there was one final merger before the big millennium change. VEM Tombeek and KFC Overijse became Tempo Overijse. Since Tombeek played a league above Overijse it was decided to continue with the matricule number of the original VK Tombeek and delete the one of the legendary KFC Overijse. The new team moved to the old home ground of KFC Overijse, which was already built during the 30s. Only one goal was on their mind; go back to the national leagues as soon as possible.
2020 - In the meantime the team has achieved that goal. Already in 2001 Tempo was back in fourth division and this time they even did better than their last glorious spell. In 2014 they won their league in fourth division and promoted to third division for the very first time in their existence. After the restructuring of Belgian football they were put in the second amateur division (fourth level) and right now Tempo Overijse is playing in the third national division (which is the fifth level). It's clear in the meantime Tempo Overijse is here to stay. And their youth is something to be proud of as well. Names like Dion Cools and Sandy Walsh started their career in Overijse and other big names have passed some time there as well. A couple of examples are Laurent Delorge, Stavros Glouftsis and Chris Janssens.
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