Almere City FC - History

History

Almere City can trace its history back to 1972, with the merger of DWS, Volewijckers and Blauw-Wit into FC Amsterdam. Disgruntled DWS supporters founded their own club, called De Zwarte Schapen, named after their nickname, which translates as Black Sheep. The club quickly rose through the ranks of Dutch amateur football, eventually reaching the Hoofdklasse. After several violent incidents on the pitch and a six month suspension by the Royal Dutch Football Association, the club moved from Amsterdam to nearby Almere and changed its name to Sporting Flevoland.

That name was changed to FC Omniworld in 2001, as a result of the efforts of a consortium (in which the city of Almere was a participant) to bring professional sports to Almere. These plans included a basketball club (BC Omniworld, now defunct), a volleyball club (VC Omniworld, now defunct) and a football club (FC Omniworld). However, when the Leefbaar Almere party became the largest party in the city council in 2002, the community withdrew from the project. This caused the club to fail the criteria for admission to the professional league in 2004.

Private investors were found, and the club managed to meet the first two criteria for admission (among which is a balanced budget) in late 2004 and early 2005. After FC Omniworld's stadium (the 3,000 seater Mitsubishi Forklift Stadion) and pitch were approved by the Royal Dutch Football Association as well, the club met all criteria for admission, and joined the 19 clubs already in the Eerste Divisie. The club's first official match would have been held on August 12, 2005, against BV Veendam. However, the referee postponed the match shortly before the kick-off was due. Heavy rain had made the artificial turf pitch unplayable. The club's professional debut came a week later, in an away match against FC Eindhoven (2–0 defeat). FC Omniworld registered its first official goal a few days later, in a 2–3 home defeat against FC Den Bosch, as Juan Viedma Schenkhuizen scored the 1–2 in the 37th minute. FC Omniworld's first league point was achieved a week later, on August 29, 2005, against Go Ahead Eagles (2–2). The club's first victory came on September 16, when Fortuna Sittard was beaten 3–2. In its first season, FC Omniworld finished in 19th place, with 29 points from 38 matches. Forward Sjoerd Ars ended in fifth place of the top scorer ranking, with 17 goals.

Ars was transferred to Go Ahead Eagles for the 2006–07 season, but the results for Omniworld improved. The club achieved 41 points from 38 matches, finishing the season in 16th place. The home match against FC Zwolle on 2007-03-16 resulted in the then worst defeat in club history though: 2–7.

In March 2010 the club was renamed AFC Almere City before being changed again a few weeks later to Almere City F.C., as the AFC prefix was deemed to be too reminiscent of the club's partners AFC Ajax. In their second game of the 2010–2011 season they were defeated 12-1 by Sparta Rotterdam, who equalled Ajax's Dutch league record win, with Johan Voskamp scoring an Jupiler League record 8 goals on his debut.