A legend never dies, they say. And in Ingelmunster people must have felt the same way. Even though their own team moved away or merged more than once, a new team keeps being created to keep football alive in Ingelmunster. And each time with great success!
It all started in 1930 when Sportvereeniging Ingelmunster joined the Belgian FA. The team played the regional leagues for more or less a decade, but when WWII kicked in SV Ingelmunster stopped playing the beautiful game. In 1941 then Football Club Naaipander Boys Ingelmunster was created. They joined the Catholic Flemish FA immediately, but two years later they wanted to join the Belgian FA after all. Instead of joining the FA as Olympic Ingelmunster the board decided to take over the activities and already existing history of SV Ingelmunster. The name was changed into Sportvereeniging Olympic Ingelmunster and they continued where the old SV had ended.
Again two years later, we are 1945 now, Football Club Molen Sport Ingelmunster joined the Belgian FA as well and for 16 years there were two teams in the charming Ingelmunster. In 1961 (after having played a couple of derbies - proof can be found on the SV Ingelmunster website) FC Molen Sport pulled back from competition and decided to unofficially merge with KSVO Ingelmunster and become Koninklijke Sportvereniging Ingelmunster.
Right up until the end of the 90s the team went up and down in the regional leagues, but in 1996 KSV Ingelmunster managed to reach the national leagues for the very first time in their history. We can already tell you that ever since the ambition of the team is very high. In 1997 already for instance they managed to promote to third division. In 1998 they just missed promotion in the play off round, but in 1999 they became champion and promoted to second division. Again a year later, in 2000, they played play offs to go to first division, but ended second and just missed out on first division football. In 2002 the exact same thing happened. What a crazy run for the team!
2002 became a very special year though. The neighbouring KRC Zuid-West-Vlaanderen, the old and infamous KRC Harelbeke, went bankrupt and to fill the gap that was left (and to set some extra ambition within the Ingelmunster team), KSV Ingelmunster decided to move to Harelbeke and unofficially merge with KRC Zuid-West-Vlaanderen to become KSV Ingelmunster Zuid-West. The move didn't become a real success. Two years later the name changed into Sporting West Ingelmunster-Harelbeke and the team relegated to third division.
The move from Ingelmunster to Harelbeke was a bit too steep for most Ingelmunster fans and in 2003 it was decided to form Olympic Molen Sport Ingelmunster, a nice reference to the two old teams. Let's leave SWI Harelbeke and concentrate on OMS Ingelmunster now. The ambition remained unchanged within the village. By 2009 already, after starting off in the lowest regional leagues, they managed to reach the top regional league and immediately they played play offs one year later. Unfortunately they missed out on promotion, but in 2010 they did receive the company of Sporting West Harelbeke (the old KSV Ingelmunster) in the top regional league. Unfortunately for OMS SW Harelbeke became champion in 2011 with OMS being second.
But this time they didn't need 66 years to be able to go to the national leagues. Because in 2012 already OMS promoted to fourth division for the very first time, again meeting SW Harelbeke. Ever since they have been playing fourth division and third amateur after the Belgian structure changed in 2016. Sadly enough OMS Ingelmunster decided to merge with the neighbouring KFC Izegem in 2017 and become KFC Mandel United Izegem-Ingelmunster. The matricule number of OMS disappeared. While Mandel United was renovating the stadium in Izegem the grounds of OMS were used, but in 2019 Mandel United definitely moved to Izegem.
Ingelmunster was left empty handed again. And again two years after their team merged a new team was created. SV Ingelmunster was (re-)created and even the old logo was dusted off from 17 years earlier. Obviously the new team had to start in the lowest regional league again, but at the moment they are leading up the table and the ambition they had the past 20 years still remains - to play in the second highest regional league as soon as possible "and we'll see from there". Let's hope they get there and they make the old days in second and third division come back again.
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