Still in East Flanders this week (quite a lot of beauties to be found there), but moving to Lebbeke now. Not far away from beauties in Wetteren and Dendermonde, there are two more very nice stadiums. We were able to visit only one though; the ground at the Albert I Straat - Sportcomplex Lebbeke Site 1.
Originally this was the home ground of Rapide Club Lebbeke. This was in fact a very young team; only created in 1978. This was the second team next to the older SK Lebbeke (their ground is not that far away from this one - but we'll pay a visit here later). Until the end of the 80s RC Lebbeke stayed in the lowest regional league but in 1989 everything changed. That's the year they promoted for the very first time ever.
Another one followed on 1990 and afterwards yet another one in 1992, reaching the highest regional league. Even there everything went perfect for the team. In 1994 they even managed to reached the national leagues (fourth division at that time) for the first time, only 16 years after they started their activities. But it didn't stop there. The results stayed amazingly great and in 1998 Rapide Club went to third division.
That was the last of it, or so it seemed. In 1999, only a year later, they relegated back to fourth division. Rapide would stay in fourth division with mixed results until 2006, very often playing derby's against KSK Lebbeke in competition. Between 2006 and 2016 they mainly played in the highest regional league. In 2016 Rapide Club Lebbeke went back to the national leagues, after the restructuring this was the third amateur division.
But after years of talks finally in 2016 the verdict came. Rapide Club Lebbeke and KSK Lebbeke (in the second highest regional leagues at that time) joined forced and became FC Lebbeke. The matricule number of Rapide was kept and the new team plays their main matches in the RC Lebbeke stadium. The B team plays in the old stadium of KSK Lebbeke a few hundred meters down the road. We like the old stadium a bit more, but this one is already impressive to visit as well.