Football club Almere City FC is having its best season ever. On Sunday, history can be written in Drenthe during the return of the final of the play-offs against FC Emmen. The first final match was won 2-0 in Almere on Tuesday evening: with a win, draw or even a small defeat (one goal difference), Almere City is promoted to the Eredivisie for the first time in club history.
Playing football at the highest level is a long-cherished wish, which has been worked towards for years. It started in the nineties with the plan of the municipality of Almere to bring a big league team from Amsterdam to the city.
Black Sheep
Former alderman Henk Smeeman stood at the cradle of that plan, which was part of a top sports vision. “Black Sheep, that’s where history all started,” says Smeeman. “The intention was that we would build a top sports center that would include a number of sports. One of them, perhaps the most important, was football.”
And so in 1994 football club De Zwarte Schapen from Amsterdam was asked to move to Almere. The club, which was led by former international Johnny Rep at the time, was playing football in the Sunday premier league at that time. “So the Black Sheep came to play here and in the meantime we have started to change the name to FC Omniworld and at the same time try to get a license to play professional football. That has been a long and difficult operation,” said Smeeman.
In 1997 the name of De Zwarte Schapen was changed to Sporting Flevoland. In 2000, the name FC Omniworld was chosen after the sports complex of the same name that still had to be built in Almere Poort. The municipality eventually put 27 million euros into the plans, but the football stadium in Almere Poort ultimately did not materialize.
“There were elections,” says Smeeman. “Livable Almere then won the elections with the story that the football players were paid with public money. They then started to form and the Omniworld story was the first to die.”
Yellow Pages Division
Because the municipality distanced itself from the plans for professional football in 2002, the club had to continue with investors and sponsors. The companies Ruitenheer, Midreth and Kroonenberg provided the financial means to continue. FC Omniworld made its debut in professional football in August 2005 with the Mitsubishi Forklift Stadium on the Fanny Blankers Koen Sportpark as its home base. The club finished its first season in the Yellow Pages Division in 19th place, with 29 points.
Almere City FC
From the 2010/11 season the club was called Almere City FC. At that time, the club completely came into the hands of Lesley Bamberger, the owner and director of the Kroonenberg Group. In the 2014/15 season, the club wins a period title for the first time in history. In the 2017/18 season, Almere City FC reached the final of the play-offs for the first time and was close to promotion to the Eredivisie. In the end, De Graafschap lost, so the party was cancelled.
It can happen on Sunday for the Almere club. An ambition that the municipality already expressed in the 1990s can then become reality. “When we started, this was of course what we aimed for. A club in the Eredivisie with the necessary display for the city, both business and social. It has been a long preliminary process, but I hope that the continuation will be at least as long,” said Smeeman.
