Jubilee GPC Vlissingen is growing and flourishing: ‘We are a real family club’ | Amateur football

GPC Vlissingen started out as a staff association. On April 23, 1949, some PTT employees in the post office at the Steenen Beer in Vlissingen took the initiative to do this. The team competed in the national PTT football competition, with only postal employees. When the employees’ shifts changed and they increasingly had to miss football matches, it was decided to merge with the municipal staff on June 1, 1954. The Municipality Post Combination (GPC) was born. The summer evening competition was a huge hit in the early days and then they switched to the Saturday competition, organized by the Zeeland department of the KNVB.

Seventy years later, the main force can call itself fourth division. “It is a wave movement,” says Kees van Belzen, former chairman and now chairman of the anniversary committee. “Not so long ago we had a golden class of A-juniors, with whom we made it to the first division. We played at that level for six years. We now have a flourishing youth department again, with 260 members and 23 teams, partly due to the efforts of the youth committee and the framework.”

GPC Vlissingen is sandwiched between the grounds of VC Vlissingen (third class) and Walcheren (second class). So there is a lot of competition, but the club manages to keep its head above water with a total number of 450 members. “We are a real family club,” says Van Belzen. “We are a close-knit group, we really want to perform, but the human aspect is just as important. For example, we always organize a sponsored run for Kika.”

There were once merger plans, at least the municipality and the football association saw potential in that. The idea was that Zeeland Sport, VC Vlissingen and GPC Vlissingen should merge into one association in 2004. An expert (Peter Galle conducted the discussions on behalf of the municipality) was even flown in to supervise the process. John Dane laughs when he thinks about it. “The man said that a merger had never failed under his leadership. Well, this will be the first, they said at GPC, after which the club song (‘There by the waves of the Scheldt) was deployed.” Ultimately, more than 90 percent of the members voted against the plans that evening. The club song was once written by Anton Hendrikse, figurehead of the club, who died in 2007. He was co-founder and honorary chairman.

“We are a mature club,” says Dane, who once took the initiative to add the town of Vlissingen to the name GPC. “When we went outside Zeeland, no one knew GPC. Well, by the way, there were plenty of people in Zeeland who didn’t know that we were a club from Vlissingen. That’s why we wanted to add Vlissingen to the name. Yes, also to strengthen the bond with the city.”

GPC is flourishing and growing. “The bond is great. Once GPC is in your heart, it will never go away,” says Dane. “We try to support each other,” Van Belzen adds. “Over the years we have always had balanced boards, where stability and continuity are important. We rely on volunteers.”

Anniversary day with reception

Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!

Log in or create an account and never miss anything from the stars.

Yes, I want free unlimited access