The lovely city of Charleroi, in the south of Belgium, is packed with absolute gems when we talk about football stadiums. Just outside of Charleroi we can find Châtelet. A village with a long football history, but no club. How is that possible, you ask?
Well. Ever since WWI there has been football in Châtelet with the creation of Châtelet Sporting Association, but the team already stopped all activities in 1920. They did inspire the foundation of Cercle Sportif Châtelettain in 1922 and the ball started rolling. Four years later Cercle Sportif too ceased to exist, but around the same time Châtelet Sporting Club started. After ten years they managed to reach the top regional league where they would stay for a decade. The biggest success without any doubt was winning the cup of Hainaut in 1937.
But after 1946 it would take quite some time before the team would manage to get back the successes. They had to fight until 1998 to be able to return to that top regional league. And from there the only way was up. Thanks to a merger in Tournai (between matricule numbers 26 and 36) the club was given an opportunity to promote via the play offs to the national leagues. And boy, did they seize that opportunity. It turned out to be for one year only, but they had the taste for more now.
The team would return to the national divisions in 2014 and would never go back to the regional leagues again. 2015 and 2016 would be important years for the club: first R Châtelet SC would merge with the neighbouring RFC Farciennes to become Châtelet-Farciennes Sporting Club, and a year later they would become champion in the renewed competition (in which they were placed in the second amateur division - the fourth level) and promote to the third level.
Sadly that also meant the end of the Stade Adrien Mura (known as Stade Fernand Hennaut until 2015) as the home stadium of the merger. In 2016 the team moved to the facilities of the former RFC Farciennes, only to use the Stade Adrien Mura as their B stadium. They would enjoy playing as an independent club for two more years before they merged with the neighbouring Olympic de Charleroi. The matricule number of Châtelet-Farciennes SC disappeared and both the stadium in Farciennes and the Stade Adrien Mura became vacant.
But Charleroi wouldn't be Charleroi if another club did not take up the empty space. RAS Monceau decided to leave their own village and use the empty stadium in Châtelet as their new home ground. That club started in 1941 as Association Sportive Hameautoise (the name Monceau was added in 1944). They'd never reach the national divisions though. In 1960 another team in Monceau was created, being Cercle Sportif Italo-Belge Marchienne-Au-Pont (renamed as Cercle Sportif Monceau-Hameau in 1978).
In 2003 those two clubs decided to join forces and became Royale Association Sportive Monceau. Now they have been playing in Châtelet for two years whereby the old home ground became the current B stadium. At this moment RAS Monceau is playing the top regional league, hoping they can follow the footsteps of the old R Châtelet SC with honour in the national divisions. They do have the perfect stadium for that anyway.
If you want to enjoy our articles in Dutch, you can read them here.