Naming My Club

Despite starting the fifth season soon, I figured I wanted the opportunity to explain why exactly I have chosen such a pretentious name. It originates from the club I am supporting in real life, Dutch minnows Fortuna Sittard. Who the hell indeed...

Fortuna Sittard is a football club based in Sittard, The Netherlands. The club currently plays its football in the 13,000 capacity Fortuna Stadion and features in the Dutch Jupiler League (First Division).

The club is the result of a merger between former clubs 'Fortuna 54' and 'Sittardia' to combine forces as the Fortuna Sittard Combinatie on July 1, 1968. 'Fortuna 54' was a relatively successful club which once won the KNVB Cup in the 1956/1957 season where they finished the Eredivisie season 2nd place behind champions Ajax Amsterdam whereas the 'Sittardia' battled against relegation for many seasons. Another KNVB Cup triumph was also celebrated by 'Fortuna 54' in 1964 before the merging of the two clubs in 1968 due to financial difficulties.

The club experienced mixed fortunes throughout its history although they were a regular fixture in the Eredivisie in the 1990s, with many talented players such as Kevin Hofland, Mark van Bommel and Fernando Ricksen emerging from its youth system. These players later joined PSV Eindhoven and Rangers as well as featuring for the Dutch national team.

The team's management also had an eye for talent, as they snapped up Wilfred Bouma and Patrick Paauwe from the youth setup of PSV. Both players developed well under manager Bert van Marwijk, before breaking into the Dutch national side and moving towards bigger clubs.

At the end of the 1999-2000 season, successful manager Bert van Marwijk left to join Feyenoord and the team seemed to collapse. Due to poor management, the team signed a number of over-paid and under-performing "stars". Fortuna relegated to the First Division in the 2000-2001 season, where things were getting from bad to worse very quickly.

Financial irregularities had been discovered and the team has been facing bankruptcy for the past 4 seasons. A little highlight came in the winter of 2003, when two of the clubs fans won the Dutch lottery and donated all of the prize money to the club. The team still hasn't been performing on the pitch and finished dead-last in the Dutch First Division for three consecutive seasons.

In the 2005-2006 season, the club managed to set a new record in Dutch professional football, going a staggering 28 league games without a win. The club also set a new record by finishing last for the third time in a row.

Despite things improving from that moment on, the Dutch FA or KNVB has decided it's now time to terminate Fortuna Sittard and maybe one or two other clubs in the region...

In the business world, mergers are a fact of life and a straightforward way to gain size and market share. In football, we are rather more sentimental and the idea of clubs merging with neighbours who are (usually) bitter rivals is enough to send most fans into apoplexy.

Less so in the Netherlands, where, since 1958, there have been no fewer than 13 mergers among professional clubs. But the biggest could be yet to come. If the FC Limburg project goes ahead, Roda Kerkrade (a product of the merger of four clubs) in the country’s top division could combine forces with any or all of the following three: VVV Venlo, MVV Maastricht, and Fortuna Sittard from the second tier.

The four clubs boast a combined attendance of 29,600, which would make them the fourth-best supported club in the Netherlands. And while a merger would mean losing some die-hard fans, proponents of the FC Limburg plan (named after the area of the country that is home to the clubs) believe that it would be more than offset by the possibility of a bigger, more successful club attracting new supporters.

I suppose most of you have never heard of Limburg and couldn't care less, but I happen to live here and I happen to support Fortuna Sittard, so this is something I deeply care about. Please allow me to elaborate.

Limburg is the southernmost of the twelve Dutch provinces. It has a highly distinct character. The social and economic trends which affected the province in recent decades generated a process of change and renewal which has enabled Limburg to transform the drawbacks of its national peripheral location into advantages inherent in its European settings, linking the Netherlands to the southern part of Europe.

A consequence of this "international gateway" location is, for the last few decades international crime, often drugs-related is on the rise, especially in the southernmost part of this province.

This small province houses four professional football clubs, none of which have ever really had substantial and lasting success. In order to create a club that would be capable of challenging the traditional top-sides, a merger between all four was proposed.

Watching games of my own club, Fortuna Sittard, is a form of sadomasochism these days. The phantasms of a glorious past haunt the club and supporters. Occasionally we see flashes of pride and quality, more often we see a rage against the dying of the light. Deep down, everyone knows the glorious days of the past will never be brought back.

The players try to compensate by playing a physical and aggressive style of football, but they simply lack the quality. It's an act of desperation, a cry that shouts "we're still here, we're still fighting, we will not be forgotten."

The latter is exactly what will happen though, as bankruptcy threatens the very existence of the club once again. The players know this and they are desperate. All of them have to live up to high expectations, brought forth by a (fairly) glorious past.

They all suffer because of the burden of history, as the descendants of giants who were once the hub of the Dutch professional league. Fortuna '54 was one of the top-sides in Dutch professional football early on, but the team lost the momentum and was overtaken by pretty much all other Dutch sides.

Instead of looking back at a glorious past, other clubs—buoyed by wealth, have given it some extra effort, they dared to take a chance and they have left Fortuna and the other Limburgian sides in the rear-view mirror.

Recent attempts at a merger have failed, but I am afraid they will be successful sooner or later and my club will cease to exist. In tribute of the braves in yellow and green, I have dubbed my club Fortuna Aeternitas. Fortuna forever...