A firm footing

The tradition of cricket at Antwerp Cricket Club has a long and proud history. It was around 1880 that a group of British expatriate workers founded the “Antwerp Athletic Club” on the Wilryksche Plein (the site of the present Bouwcentrum). When this club folded a decade later, it took the cricket lovers of Antwerp no more than forty-eight hours to come to the conclusion, on 11th May 1892, to erect the “Antwerp Cricket Club.” (It is from this club that the “Royal Antwerp Football Club,” with its famous roll number “1,” later broke away.)

"To meet a want expressed by the Cricket-loving portion of the English colony, a few enthusiasts undertook the by no means light task of awakening the dormant patriotism and sporting instincts of the Britishers in Antwerp, in order to unearth and set up again on a sound working basis the 'Antwerp Cricket Club.'" (from The Belgian News and Continental Advertiser, May 28 – June 3, 1892, p. 6).

In the face of two World Wars and subsequent resurrections, Antwerp CC has continued to survive relatively intact up to the present day. More than this, since its humble beginnings, the old club has grown to become both a force to be reckoned with in the Belgian league and an important centre for the development of the game in Belgium.