OH Leuven

On the shirt of Oud-Heverlee Leuven three old rivalries are still being worked out in cloth rather than on grass. Green stands for Stade Leuven, black for Zwarte Duivels Oud-Heverlee, red for Daring Club Leuven — three separate clubs that once competed for the same corner of the city and were folded into a white shirt after money ran out for all of them.

The merger came in 2002, forced through by Leuven's city council after the three Third Division sides could no longer sustain themselves apart. The new club took over Zwarte Duivels Oud-Heverlee's registration number, 9459, and with it a place to start from rather than three pasts to defend. That arrangement held until July 2018, when OH Leuven gave up the number and asked the Belgian federation for 18 instead — the registration that had belonged to Stade Leuven, the oldest of the three, founded in 1905. The club described the switch as a way of reclaiming a history longer than its own founding date suggested.

Ownership changed in 2016, when the Thai company King Power, which also owns Leicester City in England, took control. The stadium name followed the same line: Den Dreef, the ground the club has always called home, now carries King Power's name alongside it. Officially it holds 10,020 people; safety restrictions imposed after the 2016/17 expansion cap it at 9,809.

Belgium's top flight and its cup have both stayed out of reach. What sits in the cabinet instead came from the second tier: the Belgian Second Division title in 2010–11, and a Second Division play-off win in 2015. No nickname has stuck beyond the initials OHL — as if, more than twenty years on, three separate identities have yet to fully settle into one.