KV Mechelen - History

History

The club was founded in 1904, a few months after the birth of city rival KRC Mechelen. The club had a first successful period in the 1940s. During World War II, in 1943, the club won their first domestic title. The second title came a few years later, in 1946, and in 1948 the club was successful again. After that, the club fell back. In 1954, they managed to finish third, only one point behind champions RSC Anderlecht, but that was their last good season. Two years later, Mechelen was relegated to second division. During the 60s and the 70s, Mechelen went up and down between the first and second division. The club enjoyed a brief spell of both domestic and European success in the period of 1987–1990. They are now today still the last Belgian team that won a European trophy. KV Mechelen seemed to be on its way to becoming one of the top clubs in Belgium, but quickly declined when their chairman Cordier (who owned the rights to most of their players) was forced to sell many players due to his company's bad results. On June 10, 2007, the team achieved promotion to the Belgian First Division. Two years later in 2009, KV Mechelen played the finale of the Belgian Cup, losing it 2–0 to KRC Genk. One year after that, they stranded in the semi finale with a 2–2 draw and a 1–0 loss against KAA Gent. After a successful 2010 and four seasons for the yellow reds, coach Peter Maes decided to leave Malinwa and signed a four year contract with Sporting Lokeren. Malinwa made a deal with Marc Brys to take over from Maes. Marc Brys was coach of FC Den Bosch, a second division team in the Netherlands. After two seasons he was sacked.