On 1 July 1968 two clubs from Dutch Limburg, both hurt by relegation, decided to carry on together. On 1 July 2027 Fortuna Sittard turns 59. But its story starts a little earlier, with a man who changed Dutch football.

The contractor who paid first

In 1954 contractor Gied Joosten founded Fortuna '54 in Geleen. It was the first club in the Netherlands to pay its players, at a time when football in the country was still amateur. He was also president of the independent professional association, the NBVB.

A few months later the NBVB merged with the KNVB federation and professional football was born in the Netherlands. That is why many see Joosten as one of its fathers. The team played at the Mauritsstadion in Geleen, which later became the Fortunastadion.

The golden fifties

Fortuna '54 quickly became a force. In 1956-57, the first Eredivisie season, it finished second behind Ajax and won the Dutch Cup. The side included goalkeeper Frans de Munck and striker Bram Appel.

In 1964 it lifted a second cup and earned a place in the Cup Winners' Cup. There it was knocked out by Torino. A few years later, in 1966, Joosten's company collapsed and the club's finances went downhill.

The 1968 merger

In 1968 Fortuna '54 was relegated. The same happened to Sittardia, an amateur club from Sittard formed in 1950 from a merger of two local teams. The two joined forces as Fortuna Sittardia Combinatie, which later became Fortuna Sittard.

The new club dressed in yellow and green, the colours by which the whole of the Netherlands knows it. In 1970 it moved to De Baandert in Sittard. Fans simply call it "Fortuna".

Finals and European nights

In 1982 Fortuna was promoted to the Eredivisie and two years later reached the cup final. It lost 1-0 to Feyenoord, but earned a place in the 1984-85 Cup Winners' Cup. There it went as far as the quarter-finals, where Everton knocked it out.

De Baandert was packed on those nights. In 1999 the club played another cup final, but lost 2-0 to Ajax. That same year it moved to its new ground, today's Fortuna Sittard Stadion, which holds about 12,500 spectators.

Academy kids and the comeback

Its academy produced players who went on to play in Europe's big stadiums. Mark van Bommel, Fernando Ricksen and Kevin Hofland all started out in the yellow and green shirt. Wilfred Bouma and Patrick Paauwe also played for Fortuna.

After relegation in 2002 came hard years, with financial problems and a brief loss of the professional licence in 2009. In 2018, the year of its 50th birthday, the club returned to the Eredivisie after sixteen years. It has stayed there since, and in the 2025-26 season it finished eleventh.

Celebrate with us

From Joosten and the first professionals to the academy kids, Fortuna is part of the history of Dutch football. Its yellow and green have been worn with pride for 59 years. And every time they are a reminder that Dutch professional football started in Limburg.

Happy birthday, Fortuna! May the luck in your name always smile on you.

See our collectible jerseys at sportarena.gr.

Photo: Fortuna Sittard's stadium, 2015 – Mark Ahsmann, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.