JC International Football Club" border="0">
JC International Football Club" border="0">
Roda JC International Football ClubRoda JC Kerkrade came into being by the merger of several football clubs from Kerkrade. In 1954, SV Kerkrade (of 1926) and SV Bleijerheide (of 1914) merged to form Roda Sport. That same year, Rapid '54 (of 1954) and amateur club Juliana (of 1910) merged to form Rapid JC, which would go on to win the Dutch league in 1956. On June 27, 1962, Rapid JC and Roda Sport merged to form Roda JC. The current club is the result of the merger history involving no less than four clubs. Since being promoted to the Eredivisie in 1973, Roda JC hasn't been relegated. The club has reached the KNVB Cup final 5 times, winning it twice, in 1997 and 2000. The average attendance in 2004/05 was 12,700 people.
The last Dutch coal-mines were closed in the 1960s, but the Netherlands' most southern province, Limburg, is still referred to as the Mijnstreek ('mine district') today. The coal-mines are still industrious in folk songs in the regional dialect and in the stories of old miners, reminiscing of an era that will never return. Southern Limburg will always be their home. Their team, in most cases, is Roda JC.
Roda are known as a 'coal-miner's club'. Fans of MVV, from the provincial capital of Maastricht, pronounce those words condescendingly, in Kerkrade and surroundings they are pronounced with pride. Roda JC is Limburg's number one club, now that Limburg rivals VVV-Venlo, MVV and Fortuna Sittard are relegated from the Eredivisie. Roda's club honours include seven European campaigns and six KNVB cup finals, of which two were won. One of the predecessors in Roda's 'family tree' of mergers, Rapid JC, were champions of the Netherlands in 1956. Ten out of eleven players on that Rapid JC team were coal-miners.
Few Dutch football clubs have such a complex history of mergers as Roda JC (full name: Roda Juliana Combinatie). The story in short: Kerkrade football club (of 1926) and Bleyerheide (of 1914) became Roda Sport in 1954. In the same year Juliana (of 1910) and Rapid (of 1954) became Rapid JC. The two mergers, Roda Sport and Rapid JC, existed for only eight years, forming Roda JC in 1962. The newly born club got promoted to the Eredivisie in 1973 and did not get relegated since. Today, the club play in Parkstad Limburg Stadium.
Since their promotion to the highest level in 1973, Roda finished in the top ten of the Eredivisie more than twenty times. It is one of the select handful of clubs that regularly qualify themselves for European football and manifest themselves as tough opposition for the 'Big Three'. Roda, for one, reached their all-time high in the 1994–95 season: the yellow and black side were the only team in the country not to lose to unbeaten national and European champions Ajax. Both league confrontations ended in 1–1 and Roda JC finished second in the Eredivisie, their best league achievement ever.
SOurce : Wikipedia.com
