RRC Boitsfort (Belgium)

Royal Racing Club Boitsfort is an amateur football club from the Belgian capital of Brussels, who are believed to have been formed in 1914. Like many football clubs in the country, Boitsford have a convoluted history owing to mergers and name changes.

The club played for several decades in Brabant Provincial football until becoming involved with a merger in 1991, which involved several other clubs and their complicated lineage.

Royal Racing Club de Bruxelles were a leading light in the early years of organised football in Belgium as they were crowned as national champions in 1897, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903 and 1908 as well as lifting the Coupe de Belgique in 1912.

Racing dropped down the pecking order but won a few lower division championships before hitting financial troubles and merging with another club; White Star, whose background as well as a fuller list of Racing’s exploits can be read about here.

On August 28^th 1985 a new club, Racing Club Brussels was formed to compete in provincial football. In 1989 Racing merged with SK Watermael, a club in the south of the city, and taking the name SK Racing Club Brussels.

In 1991 SK Racing Club Brussels merged with RRC Boitsfort, and taking the full name of Royal Racing Club of Boitsfort. Boitsfort is the adjoining district with Watermael. The club moved into the Stade Des 3 Tilleuls.

To complicate matters further, another new club RRC of Brussels 1891 was formed in 1992; also playing in Brabant Provincial football.

In 2008-09 RRC Boitsfort ended in fourth position in Brabant 2ème Provinciale Série C before switching across to Serie A for 2010-11 from where the team put in several seasons of mid table finishes.

Boitsfort finished the 2017-18 season in fourth place which was enough to win promotion which was consolidated with eleventh the following campaign. The team ended the truncated 2019-20 season second from bottom in the table.

Royal Racing Club Boitsfort will play in the in Brabant 1ème Provinciale Séries ACFF/BXL in the 2020-21 season.


My visit

Sunday 20th August 2017

The bus number 95 dropped me at the Vander Elst stop after I’d visited the home of Royal Ixelles Sporting Club, a mile or so further north. I cut through a path by some flats to Avenue Léopold Wiener and then down the narrow Calypsopad.

I came out into the opening of the Parc Sportif les 3 Tilleuls, with an artificial sports pitch and numerous clay tennis courts; where it looked like some kind of tournament was about to get underway. However, it was the stadium behind the imposing grandstand that interested me.

Fortunately access was easy into the municipal Stade Des 3 Tilleuls; the home of provincial club RRC Boitsfort. What a tremendous venue it was.

There is little doubt that it is too big for its tenant club; but in it’s present condition it would be too small for anyone above the national Amateur Divisions. The health and safety brigade in the UK would have large parts of it fenced off.

The Main Stand was a tremendous structure running the full length of the pitch; with its raised seating deck. The rest of the stadium had a huge bank of open terracing curving around the running track, with trees at the rear.

It was great to see the facility being used by athletes on the track, as well as it being used for football. It may never have 50,000 inside for a big game, but thanks to the local authorities, it would be there for the community to enjoy, and the rest of us to dream of bygone days.

The visit completed my ‘hopping’ for the day before I was to meet my new Facebook friends for drinks before the lunchtime Anderlecht v St Truiden match. With time on my hands I decided to have a walk.

The twenty minutes stroll took me through residential suburban streets to Demey Metro station; from where I took a train to Centraal station for a bite to eat before taking another train to the match.