From one Ruisbroek (Sint-Pieters-Leeuw area) to the other Ruisbroek (Puurs area). Well to be exact, this week we are in Kalfort, a very small part of Puurs. A few months back we visited the K Puurs Excelsior RSK grounds, but not that far away there is another magnificent ground to be found. The stadium in the Leopold Van Kerckhovenstraat is being shared between Davo Puurs and K Kalfort Daghet.
Davo Puurs is the ladies football team, formerly part of Puurs Excelsior RSK. That team was founded during the 30s, but when the Belgian FA started off with a ladies competition in the early 70s Puurs Excelsior immediately joined with a ladies team (in 1970). That team went a bit up and down in the regional leagues of the ladies divisions. After the men's team left the national leagues during the 80s/90s the ladies team at one point decided to go their own way and split with Puurs Excelsior RSK. Since the early 90s they are called Davo Puurs.
Since 1993 Davo Puurs played in the national leagues followed by their split from the men's team in 1994. It would still last until 2004 before Davo moved to the grounds at the L Van Kerckhovenstraat. In the meantime the first team relegated back to the provincial leagues unfortunately. They are aiming all of their bullets to go back to the national leagues as soon as possible though.
This brings us to the other team playing in this stadium; K Kalfort Daghet. This is in fact a merger between two local teams, both playing in the Flemish FA. The merger also still plays in the Flemish FA. SK Daghet was the older team of the two, founded in 1953 near Antwerp. Across the years the team wandered around and finally installed themselves on a ground in Breendonk, near Kalfort, Puurs. They installed themselves there in 1977. SK Daghet was always very proud of the fact they did everything on their own and financed everything out of their own pocket.
Kalfort Sportif on the other hand was founded in 1957. They started playing on a pitch where now a local youth movement has their activities, also in the L Van Kerckhovenstraat. As of 1958 Kalfort Sportif had to move around a bit, but they finally installed in their current stadium in 1973. In the meantime they occasionally won a championship and in 1985 they even made the national news by playing a game against workers of BRT (the national TV station). The building you see on the pictures has been built in 1992 with the support of some local politicians.
In 1999 both teams decided to join forces. Both were financially very healthy and both were playing in the top league of the Flemish FA, but both teams also felt a lot of changes were happening in the world of football. To stand strong for the future they joined forces and became K Kalfort Daghet.
The most attractive part of the stadium is obviously the grandstand. This is a remainder of what was used in te regular traditional parade in Puurs. Once the parade wasn't held anymore the team felt it was a shame to not use the seats anymore and they put in a request to use them in their stadium as they never had any seats before. Quickly they received an ok for this and ever since the stadium has their own little charming grandstand. We don't remember when exactly all of this happened, but we believe it was somewhat five years ago.