Fortuna’54 (English)

Founded in 1954 in Geleen -at that time a boomtown because of the upcoming Mining Industry- by entrepreneur Gied Joosten (Geleen) who also founded a wild Pro Soccer League and invited teams as Ajax and Feyenoord to join (which they did).

54_1e_training
First training

This wild League became such a huge success, that the regular Dutch Soccer Federation could only buy this innovation. Ranking first at that time with his own green-white team Fortuna’54,Guid Joosten sold his wild League to the regular Federation (KNVB).

After that, the KNVB started the official Dutch Pro Soccer League (eredivisie). Fortuna’54 joined this League, won 2 times the League Cup (vs. The Hague and Feyenoord Rotterdam),but never became Dutch National Champion.

64_beker
The League Cup in ’64 !

Fortuna was very busy playing exhibition games, and played only 40 Dutch teams but over 70 international teams (Tottenham Hotspur, Bayern Munich, Santos, Boca Juniors, Espanol, FC Basel, Real Madrid, Botafogo, Atletico Mineiros, Chelsea, Lille, Leeds United, Everton, Monaco, etc).