Roda JC

Roda JC

Sportvereniging Roda Juliana Combinatie Kerkrade, also known as Roda JC Kerkrade is a Dutch professional association football club located in Kerkrade, Netherlands. Roda JC Kerkrade plays in the Dutch Eredivisie. The club was founded after a merger between Rapid JC and Roda Sport in 1962. They were placed in the Eerste Divisie, and after a relegation they were promoted back to the top division in 1973, where they would stay ever since. In the 2009 season they added Kerkrade to their names so they would get financial support.

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. 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'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.