Fortuna Sittard


Fortuna Sittard is a football club in Sittard, Netherlands. The club currently plays its football in the 12,500 capacity Fortuna Sittard Stadion and features in the Eredivisie. The club was established through a merger of former clubs Fortuna 54 and Sittardia, which merged as the Fortuna Sittardia Combinatie on 1 July 1968.

History

The club experienced mixed fortunes throughout its history although they were a regular fixture in the Eredivisie in the 1990s, with many talented players such as Kevin Hofland, Mark van Bommel and Fernando Ricksen emerging from its youth system. These players later joined PSV Eindhoven and Rangers thereafter featured for the Netherlands national team. The team's management also had an eye for talent, as they snapped up Wilfred Bouma and Patrick Paauwe from the youth setup of PSV. Both players developed well under manager Bert van Marwijk, before breaking into the Dutch national side and moving towards bigger clubs.
'Fortuna 54' was a relatively successful club which once won the KNVB Cup in the 1956–57 season where they finished the Eredivisie season second place behind champions Ajax whereas the 'Sittardia' battled against relegation for many seasons. Another KNVB Cup triumph was also celebrated by 'Fortuna 54' in 1964 before the merging of the two clubs in 1968 due to financial difficulties.
At the end of the 1999–2000 season, successful manager Bert van Marwijk left to join Feyenoord and the team seemed to collapse. Due to poor management, the team signed a number of over-paid and under-performing "stars". Fortuna relegated to the First Division in the 2001–02 season, where things were getting from bad to worse very quickly. Financial irregularities had been discovered and the team has been facing bankruptcy for the past four seasons. A little highlight came in the winter of 2003, when two of the club's fans won the Dutch lottery and donated all of the prize money to the club.
Things started to look up for Fortuna, when they were able to clear most of their debts by selling of the new stadium, the Wagner & Partners stadium. Unfortunately, the team hasn't been performing on the pitch and finished dead-last in the Dutch First Division for three consecutive seasons.
On 19 May 2009, the KNVB announced it would withdraw the license to play of Fortuna Sittard for the 2010–11 season. After going to civil court, this decision was revoked and the club did not lose its license. Even though financial troubles kept plaguing the club, recent years have seen a slow but steady return to financial health, with sportive successes following suit. In the 2011–2012 season they missed qualification for the playoffs for promotion to the Eredivisie by a hair's breadth, conceding an equalizer in the dying seconds of the season in the home match against the Go Ahead Eagles, seeing them take the final playoff spot instead. In 2012–13 and 2013–14 they were successful in qualifying, having a first chance at returning to the Eredivisie since their relegation in 2002, but they lost both first round matches against De Graafschap.
In 2018, after 16 years in the Eerste Divisie, Fortuna won promotion to the Eredivisie again after beating Jong PSV 1–0 to stay clear from NEC and finishing runner-up to champions Jong Ajax, who are not allowed to promote.
The 2018–19 season started unfortunate for the Limburgers: despite an almost stolen point against PSV Eindhoven, Fortuna found themselves back bottom of the league after four matches. A 2-3 win at NAC Breda however put them higher up in the rankings. In October and November Fortuna continued to gain points and eventually finding themselves back at the ninth place of the Eredivisie after 13 matches.
The 2019–20 season ended with Fortuna in 16th place. But with the season being declared void, they will participate in Eredivisie in 2020–21.

Honours


ImageSize = width:800 height:60
PlotArea = left:10 right:10 bottom:30 top:10
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy
DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy
Period = from:01/01/1990 till:01/01/2019
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:1990
Colors =
id:bl1 value:rgb
id:bl2 value:rgb
id:rs value:rgb
id:rn value:rgb
PlotData=
bar:Position width:15 color:white align:center
from:01/01/1990 till:01/01/1991 shift: text:12
from:01/01/1991 till:01/01/1992 shift: text:14
from:01/01/1992 till:01/01/1993 shift: text:16
from:01/01/1993 till:01/01/1994 shift: text:10
from:01/01/1994 till:01/01/1995 shift: text:1
from:01/01/1995 till:01/01/1996 shift: text:13
from:01/01/1996 till:01/01/1997 shift: text:11
from:01/01/1997 till:01/01/1998 shift: text:7
from:01/01/1998 till:01/01/1999 shift: text:10
from:01/01/1999 till:01/01/2000 shift: text:12
from:01/01/2000 till:01/01/2001 shift: text:16
from:01/01/2001 till:01/01/2002 shift: text:18
from:01/01/2002 till:01/01/2003 shift: text:15
from:01/01/2003 till:01/01/2004 shift: text:19
from:01/01/2004 till:01/01/2005 shift: text:19
from:01/01/2005 till:01/01/2006 shift: text:20
from:01/01/2006 till:01/01/2007 shift: text:15
from:01/01/2007 till:01/01/2008 shift: text:16
from:01/01/2008 till:01/01/2009 shift: text:15
from:01/01/2009 till:01/01/2010 shift: text:17
from:01/01/2010 till:01/01/2011 shift: text:16
from:01/01/2011 till:01/01/2012 shift: text:11
from:01/01/2012 till:01/01/2013 shift: text:7
from:01/01/2013 till:01/01/2014 shift: text:8
from:01/01/2014 till:01/01/2015 shift: text:19
from:01/01/2015 till:01/01/2016 shift: text:16
from:01/01/2016 till:01/01/2017 shift: text:17
from:01/01/2017 till:01/01/2018 shift: text:2
from:01/01/2018 till:01/01/2019 shift: text:15
from:01/01/1990 till:01/01/1993 color:bl2 shift: text: "Eredivisie"
from:01/01/1993 till:01/01/1995 color:bl1 shift: text: "Eerste Divisie"
from:01/01/1995 till:01/01/2002 color:bl2 shift: text: "Eredivisie"
from:01/01/2002 till:01/01/2018 color:bl1 shift: text: "Eerste Divisie"
from:01/01/2018 till:01/01/2019 color:bl2 shift: text: "Eredivisie"

Below is a table with Fortuna Sittard's domestic results since the introduction of professional football in 1956.

Current squad

Out on loan

Managers

;As Fortuna '54
;As Sittardia
;As Fortuna Sittard