Cercle Brugge

Bruges is a city that keeps two clubs and calls only one of them "the club" — Cercle Brugge . The team grew out of the city's Catholic community and carried a working-class identity against Club Brugge KV, which drew its support from the bourgeoisie and the Athenaeum gymnasium.

Founded on 9 April 1899, Cercle Brugge spent its first decades as the stronger side in the city. In 1911 it became the first Flemish club to win the Belgian championship, finishing a single point ahead of Club Brugge. A Belgian Cup followed in 1927. Then the club fell away, dropping through the second division and into the third before Edmond Delfour, a French coach, rebuilt it from 1958 and returned it to the top flight in 1961. A decade later, Urbain Braems set out a five-year plan to get Cercle back among the elite, and it worked: promotion came in 1971. The only other Belgian Cup arrived in 1985.

Robert Braet kept goal for the club across 352 matches between 1928 and 1948. Kalusha Bwalya, a Zambian forward, was Cercle's top scorer through the late 1980s.