K.F.C. Sparta Petegem is a Belgian professional

football club A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an all- ...

based in

Petegem-aan-de-Leie Petegem-aan-de-Leie is a village in the Belgian province of East Flanders and a borough of Deinze. Petegem-aan-de-Leie is located on the south bank of the river Leie ( Lys). The village today forms a single urban core with that of Deinze itself, wh ...

, registered with the Belgian FA under matricule 3821. The club's full name is '' Koninklijke Football Club Sparta Petegem'' ) and it has green and black as club colours.

History

On 1 February 1928 F.C. Sparta Petegem was founded, with club colours purple and white. In 1946, the club merged with neighbouring ''Padro Deinze'' to form Football Club Deinze, at which point the colours were changed to green and black. The club reverted to the name F.C. Sparta Petegem in 1950. The first major success on the pitch occurred during the 1957–58 season when the club managed to reach the highest provincial level for the first time. That season the club also won the national fair-play award. During the 1960s the club first declined before returning to the highest provincial level in 1966 and towards the end of the decade, for one season, it even played at a higher level than neighbours

Deinze Deinze () is a city and a municipality in the Belgian province of East Flanders. It comprises the city of Deinze, and the towns of Astene, Bachte-Maria-Leerne, Gottem, Grammene, Hansbeke, Landegem, Meigem, Merendree, Nevele, Petegem-aan-de-Leie, ...

. The local rivals quickly recovered, which resulted in fiercely contested derby matches for a number of seasons until 1977. In that year, Deinze managed to obtain promotion while at the same time Sparta Petegem was relegated to the second provincial division and started struggling, even dropping to the third provincial level in 1986 and only narrowly avoiding yet another relegation the season thereafter. The club started its climb to higher levels in 1993, winning promotion to the second provincial division, managed to move up to the highest provincial level where it remained nine seasons before finally reaching the national level of Belgian football for the first time in its history in 2008, moving into the

Belgian Fourth Division The Belgian Fourth Division was the lowest nationwide division in Belgian football. The division was split into four separate leagues, A, B, C and D. The team with the most points in the four leagues together was declared the overall winner ...

. In the meantime, the club had obtained the Royal designation since 2000 and had therefore been renamed K.F.C. Sparta Petegem from that season. Following a short return to the provincial leagues for the 2013–14 season, the club then managed to successive promotions to again reach its highest level ever, with the

Belgian Third Division The Belgian Third Division ( nl, Derde klasse, french: Division III) was the third highest level in Football in Belgium, Belgian football. It had two leagues of 18 teams each (Belgian Third Division A, A and Belgian Third Division B, B) at the sam ...

. Despite a top-half finish, the club dropped again to the fourth level of Belgian football due to the 2016 reform of Belgian football. The club has since then been playing at this level, the

Belgian Division 2 The Belgian Division 2, commonly referred to as simply Tweede Afdeling (in Dutch) or Division 2 (in French) is the fourth-highest division in the Belgian football league system, one level below the Belgian National Division 1. It was created by t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sparta Petegem, KFC Association football clubs established in 1928 Football clubs in Belgium 1928 establishments in Belgium