There are still a lot of stadiums waiting for a visit from us. Recently we went on a small tour again and one of the precious stadiums we visited was the Jef Luyten stadium of Witgoor Sport Dessel. We wanted to visit this one rather quickly as it's yet another gem set to be demolished soon (after the season 17-18).
The team first saw the football daylight in 1933 (as Witgoor Sport Desschel), a couple of years after their local rivals FC Dessel Sport. Both teams wandered around in the regional leagues for quite some decades and Witgoor can take pride in being the first of the two teams in Dessel to reach the national leagues, in 1961 they promotod to the fourth national division.
They didn't have any problems adapting to the national levels and had some good end positions in the leagues throughout the 60s. It was only in 1967 FC Dessel Sport joined Witgoor in fourth division. They wouldn't be together for long as in that season Witgoor won the 4th division and promoted to third division for the very first time. They had more problems adjusting to third division, but somehow they always managed to stay in the same division.
In 1970 FC Dessel Sport joined them in third. Throughout the 70s Witgoor always ended up in the lower positions, but all of a sudden they won third division in 1981, giving them promotion to second division. Unfortunately this only lasted one season. The rest of the 80s Witgoor had to fight against relegation to fourth division (except in 86 and 89 when they ended third) and in 1991 the verdict finally came... Relegation to fourth division.
Already one year later they had to go back to the regional leagues, after 31 straight years in the national leagues. Ever since they have been hopping from the top regional league to fourth national division and after a quite good run of 9 years in fourth division they finally relegated back to first regional division in 2015. One year later things even took a turn for the worse as they relegated back to the second regional division, something they haven't experienced in more than 50 years!
Currently they are fighting for their way back to the top regional league and they seem to be succeeding. It is however a shame to see this very charming ground has to disappear for new housing projects. To our knowledge Witgoor has always played at Jef Luyten stadium and in about one year and a half yet another absolute gem will be demolished.
Comments