There is one region in Belgium which has been under visited by Pitch'd and we should make a change in that. West Flanders has many absolute gems. So we decided to kick it off with a visit near the French border; KRC De Panne.
It might be a coincidence, but football in De Panne started only shortly after WWI (we all remember the Christmas football between the fighting parties during that war). Very often these were played in the region of Northern France and the De Panne area. During the early 20s RC De Panne was founded and it isn't a surprise they have a very low matricule number, of which they can be very proud; 131.
KRC De Panne has always played in the regional leagues without ever making it to the national divisions. It shows in their old ground, just a few 100 meters away from the current one. There we can only see a football pitch. We're not sure if there has ever been a grandstand or even any terracing. The ground is still there as a lost ground. During the 90s it was decided to build a completely new stadium further down the road. This became the Bella Boy stadium.
Recently KRC De Panne started to work together with other clubs in the region in order to better train the youth teams. Under the name of Westkust Foot the youth teams of KRC De Panne, KVV Coxyde and KVV Oostduinkerke are in fact one. This initially led to the rumours the first teams would merge sooner or later as well, but up until now this isn't the case and it doesn't look like this is happening anytime soon either.
