Not all stadiums are pure beauties. Most of them are just plain regular or boring. But there is also a third category: the oddities. The stadium of KSK Heist is one of those oddities.
It all started with some terracing and a pretty large grandstand, but throughout the years when the team started promoting to higher divisions, the national football league and their stadium restrictions made KSK Heist make some drastic decisions, which would make the stadium weird to see.
Next to the original grandstand a second grandstand was built, trying to maintain the architectural structure of the original grandstand, but clearly differentiating itself as well by being way more modern. The two grandstand next to each other are awful, yet very interesting as well. We believe there used to be an athletic race track around the pitch as well as on some pictures you can see some nice terracing being neglected and temporary visitor grandstands being placed in front of the terracing. Other terracing, like the one behind the goals, is clearly pretty recent.
It all started in 1940 (odd enough the second world war just started as well) as FC Heist Sportief. Pretty quickly they promoted to the second highest regional leagues and in 1954 they made it to the national leagues; fourth division. The next 30 years FC Heist Sportief would switch between 4th division and 5th division, but in 1987 they managed to go to third division. As of 1994 things started to go wrong and in a couple of years time they relegated to the regional leagues again. This was the time to start joining forces with the rivaling KSV Heist-op-den-Berg. Heist-op-den-Berg just isn't big enough for two teams and as of 1995 they merged to become KSK Heist. The next ten years the team would switch between fourth and fifth division again and in the season 2008-2009 they finally won the fourth divsion and returned to third division. The next season they won third division and ever since KSK Heist is playing in the second highest division, which is unique.
2015 is a very festive year for KSK Heist. They celebrate their 75th anniversary and the fact they merged 20 years ago. Downside of it all is that due to the coming changes in Belgian football they are also already preparing themselves to become an amateur team again (now they are semi-professional). After this season only 24 teams will remain professional in two divisions. KSK Heist realizes they won't survive as a professional team, so they will relegate definitely after this season to the highest amateur division.
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